Mahershala Ali Opens Up About Refusing To Do A Sex Scene In ‘Benjamin Button’

Acadamy-award-winning actor Mahershala Ali stopped by Common’s Mind Power Mixtape podcast and opened up about the one major condition behind him accepting a role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Ali, 46, said that when he accepted the role of Tizzy Weathers in the 2008 film, it was under the condition that he would not have to perform a sex scene with co-star Taraji P. Henson. 

“So my old agent called me and said, ‘Mahershala, you got the part.’ And I said, ‘There’s just one thing … There is that one sex scene where they kiss … If there’s a sex scene, I can’t do it,’ ” he said on the podcast, according to Page Six. 

The actor converted to Islam while getting a master’s degree at NYU. Performing the sex scene would go against his religion. “I don’t do simulated sex,” he told his agent.

“Taraji and I begin to kiss, and we fall out of the frame … It wasn’t clear if [Fincher] was trying to have like some bumping and grinding … which I doubt he was,” Ali added. “But for me even … at that time, 15 years ago, I was still like, ‘OK, I can only go up to this point,’ just because of — just trying to hold a space of respect for my religion.”

According to PEOPLE, Ali became the first Muslim actor to win an Acadamy Award in 2017 when he took home the Best Supporting Actor award for his role in the movie Moonlight. He again won an Oscar in 2019 for Best Supporting Actor for playing Don Shirley in the film Green Book, becoming the first Black actor to win an award in the same category twice.