The Religion and Political Views of Mahershala

I converted to Islam in my third year of grad school for acting, and then suddenly I’m being offered roles to play a god or a demigod. I’m six months into converting at this point, and I’m thinking about how the main thing in Islam is that there is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet, peace be upon him, but he’s a messenger, and God is God. And then suddenly I’m earning money playing characters that share power with God. It became really confusing for me, especially because then you see Muslims at the mosque and they’re like, “Saw you on TV last night.” Being a baby Muslim at the time, I was very literal about it as a working professional. I wasn’t compartmentalizing it in a way where I could be a little bit more empowered and say, “I’m not doing that type of thing anymore.” I can play a role that’s intimate, but do we need to be bumping and grinding? Can we take a more modest approach to that? I’m sure people have critiques about my decisions, but it was a way for me to figure out how to exist in this space so that I could do what my religion guides me to do, which is to take every aspect of my life and take it from darkness into light, or from a place of ignorance into a place of knowing.