Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

Is making a splash…

I’m probably the embodiment of good luck, hard work and naïvety,” grins Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. “According to the statistics, you don’t bet on someone with the goals that I have had.” Turning to acting after being laid off from his city planner job, he quickly scored roles in Netflix’s The Get Down, Baywatch, The Greatest Showman and now Aquaman. Next up: Jordan Peele’s Us and HBO’s Watchmen. How would you sum up your character in Aquaman – David Kane aka Black Manta? He is emotionally driven, fiercely independent and annoyingly tenacious. He’s a mercenary who works independently, and we meet him at a place of extreme triumph that’s immediately followed by extreme loss. We get to see him change and turn into the person we know as Black Manta, but it’s driven by real emotional substance. You’re in HBO’s Watchmen. Did you discuss it with your Aquaman co-star Patrick Wilson? I have not talked to Patrick about it, but hopefully I’ll run into him, and maybe I will sit down and talk to him about that. There’s not a lot of information that I do know about it… I do think that’s going to be a pretty exciting one. What did you learn from working with Dwayne Johnson and Hugh Jackman? For Dwayne: always be on time, and work really, really fucking hard, and be nice to everyone. With Hugh, people told me he was the nicest person in Hollywood before I met him. And it just turned out to be true. Work ethic, also. He works extremely hard. So I’ve had really good examples for how to be a leading man in this industry. Is there a role you’d love to tackle next? Maybe something like the Mad Hatter in Alice In Wonderland, something off the chain. And then find something grounded like the Marvin Gaye story or something like that. But there’s tonnes of stuff. This ride is just getting started. MM