Though he’s already quite a familiar face, Mamoudou Athie is just on the precipice of becoming a household name.
The Mauritania-born, New Carrolton, MD-raised actor has remained heavily booked in high-profile projects since just shortly after graduating from Yale School of Drama in 2014. Even if you don’t yet know his name off the top of your head, you’ve certainly seen his work. Whether as Grandmaster Flash in Netflix’s gone-too-soon Hip-Hop musical The Get Down, as protagonist Elijah in Prentice Penny’s hit sommelier drama Uncorked, as Wade Ripple in Disney’s Elemental, or in his turn as Ramsay Cole in the blockbuster sequel Jurassic World Dominion.
“I’m extremely fortunate,” Athie says of his success in the field so soon after entering professional acting. The classically-trained actor, who also cut his teeth at Manhattan’s William Esper Studio, recognizes that his quick rise to success came from a combination of hard work, timing, and the combined efforts of many Black actors who came before him chipping away at pre-established boundaries, stereotypes, and industry discrimination, and typecasting.
“I graduated in 2014 when business was booming in a way. I always think about all the actors of color that were denied opportunity for years, since the beginning of the industry’s existence,” he says. “A lot of people did a lot of work for me to be in a position just to have a fair shot at something [like this], which is a real shame.”
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