Sorry to Bother You. Blindspotting. Black Panther. The rest of the world is finally starting to catch on: there’s something truly captivating about Oakland, and it translates well to the big screen. And who better to tell these stories than writer-directors and actors who hail from the Town themselves?
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is the latest Oakland actor to rise rapidly in Hollywood. If you don’t know him from his role as Cadillac, the disco-dancing villain of the 2016 Netflix drama The Get Down, you definitely know him from Aquaman, in which he played the vengeful high-seas mercenary Black Manta. Abdul-Mateen II was born in New Orleans but moved to the Bay as a young teenager, where he attended McClymonds High School in West Oakland.
“I’m from New Orleans, but Oakland was the city that sort of adopted me,” he told The Bold Italic. “I wouldn’t even say it’s a second home — the Bay is a home also.”
Abdul-Mateen II stayed in the area to get his degree in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, after which he worked as a city planner in San Francisco. Acting as a career path could not have been further from his mind — that is, until he got laid off from his job.
“I wanted to have some fun and really take a chance on something that was a little bit different,” he explained.
Abdul-Mateen II always thought he would be an architect, so acting came completely out of left field for him. But once he started seriously pursuing it, doors kept opening, taking him from theaters around the Bay Area to the Yale School of Drama to his first gig in The Get Down, a series about the 1970s birth of hip-hop in the Bronx. And now he’s taken on roles in blockbuster films, including Aquaman, The Greatest Showman and Baywatch.
He’s continuing to ride the wave of his rising stardom, with roles including one in upcoming Jordan Peele horror flick Us, to be released on March 22. Abdul-Mateen II couldn’t tell us much about his part in that film yet, but he did speak a little bit about some of his other upcoming projects: a starring role opposite Dakota Fanning in Sweetness in the Belly (a love story based on the novel by Laura Phillips) as well as a neighborhood mentor role in the Netflix film All Day and a Night, which was written and directed by Black Panther cowriter Joe Robert Cole. He was also cast in HBO’s new Watchmen series, set to premiere later this year, and is in talks to star in Jordan Peele’s remake of the classic horror tale Candyman.
All Day and a Night was a particularly significant gig for Abdul-Mateen II, as he had the opportunity to return to Oakland to film it. Starring Ashton Sanders (Moonlight), the film follows a young man in the prison system dealing with the repercussions of committing homicide.
“Oakland is such an individual place where I don’t have any choice but to be myself.”
“I wanted to go and lend my own force to that and give some Oakland authenticity to [the film],” said Abdul-Mateen II. His character is “an OG in the neighborhood who kind of has an eye on things, but he’s also trying to keep his grasp on the power that he has.”
In the way he talks about the Town, you can tell Abdul-Mateen II is bursting with Oakland pride, even though he now lives on the East Coast.
“Oakland is such an individual place where I don’t have any choice but to be myself,” he said. “The Bay Area is extremely cultured and very diverse, and it’s popular to be well-educated and well-versed in your history. It has a certain type of flavor to it that I definitely appreciate.”
Abdul-Mateen II says he’s always seen Oakland’s potential as a creative hub, but with popular writer-directors such as Boots Riley and Ryan Coogler putting Oakland on the map Hollywood-wise, local creators are getting more opportunities than ever before. While a few years ago Abdul-Mateen II felt like he had to move to the East Coast to pursue his acting career, he believes that “now someone with the same ambition as myself doesn’t have to leave Oakland — they can stay and carve out an excellent career.”
Brilliant black filmmakers from the Bay Area are finally breaking through and getting the resources to tell these Oakland stories — and by having locals at the helm, Oakland’s representation on-screen is growing more authentic.
Heather MacLean, an Oaklander who was the location manager for Sorry to Bother You as well as All Day and a Night, said that the increasing interest in films set in Oakland is part of a larger rise in black cinema in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite.
“It’s kind of a happy fallout from that,” she said. “Calling the industry out on something that’s so blatant and obvious created, I think, an opportunity for funding and support that wasn’t always there.”
Brilliant black filmmakers from the Bay Area are finally breaking through and getting the resources to tell these Oakland stories — and by having locals at the helm, Oakland’s representation on-screen is growing more authentic.
“What people from Oakland all know is that it’s a perfect blend of politics and activism but also art and heart and community,” explained MacLean. “So finally, there are these people that are actually from the Town who are writing about what Oakland’s really about, not just sideshows and gangs and poverty.”
“Stories imagined from Oakland offer a palpability that compels people to feel and to think.”
In other places besides Oakland, the advent of streaming services means that indie filmmaking is on the rise — and therefore the industry is becoming more willing to take risks. This means that a more diverse range of stories are finally getting told, and Oakland’s identity on-screen no longer has to be monolithic. The result? More Americans can identify with what they’re seeing at the cinema (or on their laptops).
“Stories imagined from Oakland offer a palpability that compels people to feel and to think,” said Michael Orange, founder and executive director of MATATU, a creative collective of artists, filmmakers and storytellers in Oakland. “People have grown bored with the notion that cinema is a place to disconnect. Cinemas are places for thinking, and Oakland has the entire world on edge.”
For Abdul-Mateen II, it’s the Oakland community that has always had his back as he’s made strides in his acting career. He’s currently on the road a lot, but, he said, “Oakland is somewhere that’ll always be home. I have to be able to touch back down in Oakland and have some roots there because Oakland supports me so much.”
As he keeps building up the momentum he’s created thus far with bigger and bigger roles, Abdul-Mateen II hopes to eventually begin writing and telling stories of his own.
“I’d like to inspire people to follow their dreams — specifically in the places that I’m from: New Orleans and Oakland,” he said. “There’s so many talented people who, I know, should be doing the same thing as me.”
