Bassam Tariq Channels Fatherhood After Blade Fallout — SkimNews
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- "Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother" stars Mahershala Ali as Latif, a Muslim hit man in Houston suburbs who must secure breast milk for his infant daughter after his wife's death while managing warring religious factions including John Cho's gun-toting cult pastor Hwan Yoon.
- Tariq drew on his 2012 experience as a new father when his wife was hospitalized and he frantically sought breast milk for his formula-allergic newborn — strangers "thought I was a pervert," he tells Rolling Stone.
- After Marvel's Blade — which Tariq was set to direct with Ali starring — was scrapped, Tariq says he "put my head down" and wrote "a film that's completely mine," despite online harassment from fans blaming him for the project's collapse.
- The prophet in an Islamic hadith answers "your mother" three times before naming "your father" on the fourth ask when a man asks who deserves devotion — the direct source of the film's three-word title.
- The supporting cast includes Giancarlo Esposito as Latif's disappointed imam, Laith Nakli as his contract employer Mike, Abubakr Ali as a Muslim porn mogul, and a young actor mononymously known as Adia as praying daughter Fatiha.
- In the climax, Latif is shot dead but resurrected when his daughter Fatiha prays for him; Tariq says he's "nervous that we will lose people" over the surreal battlefield miracle.
- The Houston setting and tensions between assimilation and cultural pride come from Tariq's own upbringing, including a subplot about a Muslim porn empire inspired by real-life adult site Brazzers.
Why it matters: For Tariq, the film reclaims creative control after the Blade collapse, putting his own fatherhood story at its core. Ali — already attached to Blade — stays with Tariq for something distinctly his own. The film also tests audiences with a literal resurrection scene grounded in Islamic faith.
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