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Yahya Abdul-Mateen II-Don’t Call Him Villain
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Friday, March 16, 2018
 

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Yahya's the disco king Cadillac on Netflix’s musical TV drama series “The Get Down.” He starred as a police officer in “Baywatch” and an acrobat in “The Greatest Showman” about the American showman P.T. Barnum.

Now the 31-year-old actor from New Orleans is set to portray Black Manta, a treasure hunting villain in DC’s upcoming superhero film “Aquaman.”

But Abdul-Mateen would prefer not to be thought of as a villain. Not even a villain with ripped arms and torso who can breathe underwater through a powerful suit, survive the pressure of the deep ocean and fire deadly energy blasts from his mask.

“It’s all about perspective. Some would call me an arch-enemy. Some would call me an arch-hero. I just prefer to think of my character as a driven guy with a chip on his shoulder—someone who has the luxury of getting what he wants,” he said.

Abdul-Mateen is anything but a guy with a chip on his shoulder.

Honored by the Sun Valley Film Festival Wednesday night with its Rising Star Award, he was eager to please. He posed for selfies with those attending the festival’s Patron Party at the festival’s Café Artois  set up in the former Cornerstone Bar and Grill. And he happily fielded questions posed by reporters from “Variety” and other media about his brief but burgeoning career.

“Yeah, it takes a lot of coin to live in San Francisco,” he commiserated with one patron.

Abdul-Mateen should know. Armed with an architecture degree from the University of California-Berkeley, he was working as a city planner in San Francisco when the economy went south. He decided to go back to school to get a degree in Master of Fine Arts from Yale School of Drama.

The New Orleans native—son of a Muslim father and Christian mother—got his degree in 2015 and been busy ever since.

“My father was a construction worker and so I wanted to be like him—that’s why I became an architect. When I was laid off, I decided to follow my secret passion,” said Abdul-Mateen, who reenacted scenes from “Mary Poppins” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” as a child.

“It’s a radical shift from what I was doing. But I didn’t want to have any regrets. So when they ran out of funding for the project I was working on, I made the jump. And now I’m building things in film. And, given this award and my other success, I can see it wasn’t in vain. I made the right decision.”

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is one of the industry’s fastest rising talents with a multitude of diverse projects on the horizon, noted Festival Co-Director Candice Pate.

Film festival founder Teddy Grennan noted that the film festival gave away its first Horizon Award last year to Allison Williams, whose “Get Out” turned to be a mega hit. And he expects Abdul-Mateen to be just as big.

“Abdul may not be somebody you know yet, but you will know him,” he told festival patrons.

“I’m excited to be here,” said Abdul-Mateen, who now lives in New York. “It’s so nice to be here among people who love films.”

In addition to “Aquaman,” Abdul-Mateen can be seen as “a guy with a really big heart” in “Boundaries,” a comedy-drama about a daughter and her son driving their pot-dealing father played by Christopher Plummer to her sister’s house after he’s kicked out of a retirement home. The film premiered at South by Southwest this week.

He is set to play Cin, the founder of the Symbionese Liberation Army, in a film about Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped by the radical group in 1974 and brainwashed into becoming a bank robber for the radical group’s causes.

“I’m just so thankful. I’m just hanging out, having a curiosity, having fun. I’m traveling places to make my films—London, Australia, Brazil. It’s a wild ride right now. But I have accomplished friends who go with me, and I have a tight knit family that keeps me grounded,” he said.

When he needs time out, he escapes to museums—art museums, in particular.

“Acting takes a lot of energy. You have to learn to have a life, smell the roses,” he said, flashing a wide smile. “I love walking through museums and noticing the circulation of the museum.”

Abdul-Mateen had to cancel a talk for the Sun Valley Film Festival at the last minute when he got the call to fly to Brazil for a project so secret he couldn’t even reveal it to film festival directors.

“It’s a really good project that’s going to get a lot of eyes and a lot of laughs. But it’s not a film,” he said.

That said Abdul-Mateen can’t wait to come back to Sun Valley.

“When I stepped off the plane, I saw the mountains and they took my breath away. I turned around to see what was behind me and there were more mountains. Beautiful. I want to come back,” he said.

Meanwhile, Abdul-Mateen will continue on his road, hoping that one day he gets his dream job.

“I would like to be a guy, a regular type of guy that people see every day who overcomes some type of problem,” he said. “I want to play someone who can teach viewers, someone who can inspire them.”

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS

Jeanne Tripplehorn from “Basic Instinct” will headline a free Coffee Talk at 10 a.m. at the Sun Valley Opera House.

“Chasing the Thunder,” about the hunt for a poaching vessel, will be shown at 1:15 p.m. in the Sun Valley Opera House. The screening is a Festival Freebie.

And the U.S. Premiere of Kate Bosworth’s “Nona,” which puts sex trafficking in the spotlight, will take place at 1:30 p.m. at the Ford Cinetransformer with a question and answer following.

“Beirut,” about a U.S. diplomat called back to the Middle East to rescue his friend, will show at 8:30 p.m. in the Sun Valley Opera House.

~  Today's Topics ~


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