Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

Date of Birth:

15-Jul-1986

Nationality:

United States

Profession:

Actor

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to his Muslim father Yahya Abdul Mateen I, and his Christian mother, Mary. She is the youngest of six brothers and sisters. Jahya was only six years old when the father of a construction worker encouraged him to become an architect. He went to the University of California, Berkeley to get a degree in architecture. While there, a friend suggested taking a simple credit management class. She looked at the class, entered, and discovered a new love for imitation. The young designer found a job in San Francisco as a City Organizer, but was laid off in October 2010. That's when she decided to pursue her new acting dreams. Over a year later she was accepted to the Yale School of Drama, Harvard, NYU and the American Conservatory Theater. In May of 2015 he graduated from Yale and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts. A year after graduation, Yahya had her first big break when she starred in the 2016 Netflix series Get Down. He spent seven hours a day making a disco for his role as Clarence Caldwell. He has also appeared in the films The Vanishing of Sidney Hall (2017), The Greatest Showman (2017), Baywatch (2017), The First Game (2018), Boundaries (2018) and the television series The Handmaid's Tale. His biggest performance so far was the DC film Aquaman (2018), playing the villain Black Manta / David Kane. He trained himself in the film by teaching himself how to swim with YouTube teachers and the dance board in the hotel's swimming pools before the performance. Quietly enough, he wasn't supposed to do swimming in the movie, even though he got a new skill! In 2019, he starred in Jordan Peele's horror film Us and Joe Robert Cole's All Day and Night. She will also appear in the drama film Sweetness in the Belly, which has not yet officially been released.

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Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

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QUOTES BY Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

I'm the youngest of six kids, and I grew up with a lot of noise, a lot of music, and a lot of laughter.

I'm so thankful every day.

I have a love-hate relationship with working out. I do not enjoy the experience when I'm doing it, but I never regret it.

I kind of just skyrocketed out of graduate school.

I was studying architecture at Berkeley when my father passed away in 2007. We knew he had cancer, but we didn't expect it to escalate so rapidly. In my mind, it was like, 'He'll pull through.' When he didn't, I didn't understand. I was 21, and my best friend had died.

I just want to do work that gets people excited and makes them feel things, no matter their economic or racial background.

If you look at the story of 'The Get Down,' it's the story of young people, unknowns thrown together by their resources, trying to create something.

I wanted to be Michael Jackson as a kid.

I had taken an acting class at Berkeley - I was on the track team, and a friend of mine on the team said, 'You should take an acting class. It's just like recess.' So I viewed it as a simple credit.

I did not sit down and watch 'Baywatch' growing up. But I do specifically remember it coming on, and I remember it going off. I watched something that came on right before and then going back to that channel to watch what was coming on afterwards.