career Mario starred as Miles Darby in Step Up, a dance-themed film released on August 11, 2006. He also appeared in Freedom Writers, which was released on January 5, 2007. Mario did not take acting classes before undertaking the role. Mario has stated that he would like to own his own film production company entitled "Inside Paris Productions" and become a director. On March 5, 2009, Mario said on Twitter that he had made an ABC network testing for a new pilot. As result, he made an announcement to The Electric Company on PBS, with the "Soft G". He starred in One on One as Spirit's date to the dance. Knightwritaz Knightwritaz is a production team of which Mario was a part of. The team included Sterling Simms, Warren "Oak" Felder and Marsha of Floetry. Aside from producing songs for Mario's third album Go, the team has written and produced songs for Jennifer Lopez, Chris Brown, Jordin Sparks, Usher and Raven-Symoné. Mario claimed to be more of the songwriter in the team. In an interview with Rap-Up, he said that he was no longer a part of the Knightwritaz. Do Right Foundation Mario's Do Right Foundation was established in March 2008 to educate and inspire children who suffer from the drug addictions of their parents. In May, Mario published a notice on the Facebook page of the foundation, saying that he had been in a studio in Miami all night re-recording the song "Do Right" from his 2007 album Go. New Citizen LLC Since 2016, Mario founded his independent record label New Citizen LLC, and has signed a partnership deal with EMPIRE for distribution. In 2020, Mario partnered with The Orchard to distribute future music releases after he parted ways from EMPIRE. Personal life MTV aired a special on October 21, 2007, I Won't Love You to Death: The Story of Mario and His Mom, which dealt with his mother's heroin addiction. The documentary is about how the singer strives for help to stop his mother's addiction. While doing this, he seeks help from family and friends. Mario wrote a letter to his mother stating how appreciative he is and begs her to stop her addiction. At the end of the letter he says, "I love you, but I won't love you to death". On the documentary, produced by Gigantic! Productions, he won the 2008's Prism Award for its accurate