Yahya Abdul-Mateen II wasn’t going to waste his one “Marvel buck.” This is the same man who walked away from a George Miller’s “Furiosa.”
The move was necessary. Six straight years of work — “The Get Down,” “Aquaman,” “Watchmen,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “The Matrix Resurrections,” “Black Mirror” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” — had left him, by his own admission, depleted. Conversations with Miller about the “Mad Max” prequel were warm and respectful, he is careful to note, but the prospect of another nine-month overseas shoot collided with the simple desire for an apartment that was not, in his words, mostly “a storage unit.”
“It was just the place where my stuff was,” he recalls.
Dan Doperalski for Variety
Seven months after exiting “Furiosa,” the call came for “Topdog/Underdog” on Broadway and the role of Booth — one he had wanted for two decades and which led to his first Tony nomination. The stage run reignited what burnout had put on the back burner. And in the middle of that play, another call came: a new Marvel TV series called “Wonder Man,” about an actor who needed a break and who was extravagantly passionate about craft.
