Mahershala Ali Welcomes Daughter Bari Najma

Mahershala Ali is a dad!

The Moonlight star and his wife Amatus Sami-Karim have welcomed their first child, a daughter, he announced on Instagram Friday.

Baby Bari Najma Ali came into the world on Wednesday, Feb. 24. The newborn’s name is pronounced Bar-ee.

Ali, 43, is expected to attend the Academy Awards Sunday, where he is nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

The Academy Awards kicks off live on ABC on Sunday, Feb. 26, with a 7 p.m. ET pre-show and 8:30 p.m. ceremony. See all the Oscar nominees and get your own ballot here!

Ali joked about the potential of his first child being born during the show when he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in January.

“I’m hosting the show, and you do what you wanna do, but it’d be really great for our ratings if your wife had the baby during the Oscars,” joked Jimmy Kimmel. “During the monologue would be ideal.”

“That’d be good — nice private and public,” Ali said.

“And then you name the baby Oscar, you got no problems going forward,” continued Kimmel, 49, whose own second child is on the way. “I think they would give little Oscar and Oscar for that.”

The new dad announced his first child was on the way with a December Instagram post, sharing a photo of himself and his wife, with Sami-Karim cradling her baby bump.

“You couldn’t write it this way!” the Hidden Figures actor told Entertainment Tonight earlier this month of his wife’s due date falling right around Oscar night. “I’d watch that movie and be like, ‘Okay, who make that up?’ ”

Of Sami-Karim’s support during awards season, the Screen Actors Guild Award winner added, “A big help is I have a supportive partner who loves me and gets it and has been a soldier throughout this.”

Watch the PEOPLE & EW Red Carpet Live Oscars pre-show on Feb. 26 at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT on the People/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN). Go to PEOPLE.com/PEN, or download the app on your favorite device. Then watch our Red Carpet Fashion Wrap-Up after the Oscars!