Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

YAHYA ABDUL-MATEEN II is well known for his Emmy Award-winning performance as Cal Abar/Dr. Manhattan in HBO’s groundbreaking series, Watchmen. He recently starred in Michel Bay‘s Ambulance, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal, and will be reprising his role as Manta in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in theaters March 2023. Yahya starred in The Matrix: Resurrections, led by original director/writer Lana Wachowski, and in the Jordan Peele-produced remake of the popular Candyman for MGM/Universal. He also co-starred amongst an all-star cast in Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, in which he played Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale. Other film and television credits include Aquaman opposite Jason Momoa for DC Comics and Warner Bros.; First Match, based on an award-winning script by Olivia Newman (Audience Award at SXSW); the “Striking Vipers” episode of Black Mirror; Jordan Peele’s Us; The Greatest Showman opposite Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, and Zendaya for Twentieth Century Fox; Sony Pictures Classic’s Boundaries; The Handmaid’s Tale; Baywatch; Netflix’s All Day and a Night; Sweetness in the Belly opposite Dakota Fanning, (2019 Toronto International Film Festival); and Baz Luhrmann’s television series, The Get Down. Upcoming projects include Emergency Contact, which he is set to star in and executive produce, By All for Warner Bros, and The Scent of Burnt Flowers with Macro TV, created by Blitz Bazawule. He has been honored by the Critics’ Choice Association’s Celebration of Black Cinema with the Breakthrough Award in Feb 2021, made the HuffPost’s 2020 Culture Shifters list, and in 2018, was one of a select group of actors to make the prestigious The Hollywood Reporter’s NextGen list. Born in New Orleans and raised in Oakland, California, Yahya is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, where he received the prestigious Herschel Williams Prize. Topdog/Underdog will be his Broadway debut.