- Yay, Yahya Abdul about to say, "Look at that smile."
You got to watch out for that one (laughs).
(bright upbeat music begins)
Hey, what's going on, this is Yahya Abdul Mateen II.
I'm here with "Seasoned" and I'm getting ready
to play 'Explain That Gram', I'm excited.
I use my Instagram for looking up fashion and style
and a little bit to kinda stay
in communication with my friends,
but I'm probably very similar to the average Instagram user,
scrolling and pressing like and things like that.
I'm getting a little bit better about using it
for my own marketing and for my business
and things like that, it's always just a little bit of both.
(air whooshing) That was really cool.
I didn't tell anyone, but about four years ago,
I wrote down in my journal,
it was the first thing that I wrote down,
I said I wanted to get in really good shape
and I wanted to cover of a "Men's Health" magazine.
And then lo and behold, a little bit later, I get the cover.
And that was, that was really cool.
What wasn't so cool about that is that
I only had about a week and a half
of a heads up notice for that,
and that's why I have on a t-shirt in this,
because that wasn't enough time.
So I did so much work, I probably put on about...
I put on as much fat as I could
over the course of about two weeks
and put on a t-shirt and went ahead and did it.
But I was really, really happy about that,
definitely a milestone moment.
Yeah, yeah, this tattoo is on the inside of my wrist
and that was the dedication to my father.
It's just two stick figures,
myself and my father holding hands.
My father passed away in 2007
and I got this tattoo probably in 2008.
I never really was a tattoo person.
I got one on my shoulder, I got a fraternity tattoo,
it was about seven of us that went to go get 'em
But then I got this from...
This was my second one, I got another one on my wrist
for my mom, and I think recently,
I've been thinking about getting a couple more,
so we'll see.
(air whooshing) That's my girl, Virginia King.
That's my girl, that's my girl, and look that picture,
that's just what we do, that's basically our dynamic.
This is backstage at the NYC Comic Con,
no idea what we laughing at, but that's just the vibe
whenever me and Regina hookup.
She's so sweet and she's game, she's got a lot of attitude.
She's sneaky too, she's very, very playful
she's a jokester, don't let her get a one up on you
because she's gonna find it, and she gonna ride it out.
You know, she go ride it out
until you can't take it no more.
And that's probably some of what's going on right here,
we crack it up and joking about something.
(air whooshing) Ah, this guy.
Somebody might've taken his picture.
I might have taken a version of this picture
after coming from the gym.
This was about a couple months after doing "Watchman".
So I was pretty confident about my body
and things like that.
I might've taken a picture or not,
and was not too happy about it,
and then somebody else might have told me
to go back and take it and set it up and took it for me.
But all less allegedly, that was crazy (laughs).
You know what I need to get back in the gym,
so I could take maybe a couple more pictures like that.
(air whooshing) I used to try
to make music when I was in between trying to figure out
if I was gonna be an actor or architect.
But no, this is, I did voiceover for "The Get Down",
and the second part of "The Get Down",
there was some animation and this is what that was,
this was me inside of the studio for the first time,
I felt like I was a rapper or something like that.
So I wore my beanie and I'm peace sign and everything,
but just having some fun inside of the studio.
This is 2016, very, very early in my acting adventure.
(air whooshing) And my dad, that's my daddy.
This has to be California, at the Masjid.
And that's about all I...
I don't remember the photo,
I don't remember when it was taken,
but he's young in that picture.
And he looks like me and he looks like my sister.
And I posted this on Father's Day of this year.
And this is one of the pictures where I look at him
and I see myself the most.
Yay, Yahya Abdul about to say, "Look at that smile."
You got to watch out for that one (laughs).
(air whooshing) I'll fit in too bad, right?
I like that, I got the nice shoulders,
long legs giving a nice boot,
you know, that smile, the haircut.
This is on the "Trevor Noah Show".
This was doing some publicity for "Watchmen"
and I'm wearing something called,
I think some people call it a French tuck,
or something like that.
I didn't know what it was called until I wore it like that,
and people were commenting on it.
Yeah it worked out, it worked out.
So if you see people wearing this after that,
I'm not gonna take all the credit,
but I'm gonna take some of the credit.
(air whooshing) Yeah, his was, let me see.
June 1st, "Black family don't feel guilty
for laughing and feeling joy today, we need that too."
Because in the midst of everything
that's going on in the world, sometimes it feels,
you can feel guilt, one can feel guilt
for experiencing laughter and joy and things like that.
And just, as a black people, we're very joyous
and we celebrate and we laugh and we make jokes
about any and everything.
That's a very important part of our survival.
And so I was in a moment where I was feeling myself,
feeling a little bit of guilt
for experiencing some real true joy around this time.
And I said, "You know what, I'm not gonna do that."
Because I'm a feel all of the other things
like that's just gonna come.
So I'm not gonna deny myself the chance
to have some relief from that, and some happiness,
and things like that."
So that was my reminder to myself
and a reminder to anybody else
who may come across that message.
About 48 hours ago, I cleaned up my Instagram
and I maybe archived, maybe about 40 pictures
or some 40 pictures and videos,
or something like that.
So y'all actually,
probably took it a little bit light on me this time.
And it had y'all went and pulled these three days ago,
we'd be looking at a lot different photos.
So I'm happy about the way it went,
everything's good, I'm safe.
(air whooshing) Hey, that was real dope.
I'm Yahya Abdul Mateen II,
and apparently I am now very well-seasoned, peace.
(bright upbeat music)