Final outing for Malik Yoba in Alphas
York Undercover. Alphas… New
I FIRST met Malik Yoba a year ago in Amsterdam. It was for the launch of Alphas, in which he plays the lead as Bill Harken.
Now in South Africa to promote the second season, he laughs at the recollection of our former meeting. Let’s just say dinner got very interesting when a couple decided to go all Red Light District in front of their apartment window, unaware that the guests in the restaurant opposite them got a bird’s-eye view.
Looking rather dapper in a powerhouse cream suit, I asked Yoba what’s been keeping him busy.
“Been doing all kinds of s***,” he says.
What exactly have you been doing, I nudge?
After a quip about whether he is tired of saying the same things, he gives in, “I have been doing Revolution. I played Martin Luther King in a film. Doing The Glades, I’m about to do a film for the BBC. And I have been recording music, teaching and producing stuff.”
With 24 hours in a day, Yoba is clearly determined to make every minute count.
Still terribly jetlagged and stuck in New York time, the actor has been struggling to readjust.
Chatting about the transformation of his character from last season, he says, “This year was definitely about him trying to evolve. Teenagers in the 1990s went gaga for Malik Yoba as Detective Julius Clarence ‘JC’ Williams in
While synonymous with that show, Yoba has gone on to broaden his skills in tinseltown. got a oneon-one with him during his recent visit to South Africa to promote season two of Universal Channel’s He couldn’t stay the person he was all the time. Everyone thinks he had anger issues. I just thought he had control issues. He didn’t want to get angry of excited. He knows what happens to the adrenalin. That is why he would get upset.”
And his relationship with his wife has certainly improved.
He laughs, “That’s because she thinks he is ready to knock her up. In season three, the one you mention, she comes to the office. Everybody needs a little office romance, whether it is with your significant other…”
This season, Harken is finding his balance.
On working with Azita Ghanizada as Rachel Pirzad, he teases, “I hate her. It was good. We didn’t have a lot to do together. But she has a romance.”
The Alphas fight club takes a chunk of the storyline this season.
“I think the first five episodes were on that. They were the ones were I felt exhausted. That was crazy to me,” Yoba says.
Although he didn’t have to undergo any special training for those scenes, he kept physically fit for them.
Interestingly, Alphas hasn’t been doing well in the US.
“The reality is that the number has dropped in the states,” he says. “But it does well here.”
With the writers of TV shows raising the bar in the various genres, it certainly places pressure on a series and its longevity.
“I think that is why there was so much action. Although I don’t know if that was the answer. I think creatively, you only have 44 minutes to tell a story so if you have a lot of