Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

Abdul-Mateen's first significant role was Cadillac in The Get Down in 2016, a peacocking dance-hall impresario, and four years later he had an Emmy. The speed of that is worth stating plainly: Baywatch, The Greatest Showman and Aquaman across 2017 and 2018, Watchmen in 2019, the award, then Morpheus.

He has since become Hollywood's specialist in the second version of an icon. Black Manta, Anthony McCoy in the Candyman sequel, Morpheus and Agent Smith in The Matrix Resurrections, Bobby Seale in The Trial of the Chicago 7, with Simon Williams in Wonder Man and John Creasy in a new Man on Fire still ahead of him. Almost every high-profile job asks him to carry a character the audience already has feelings about. He is unusually good at it because he refuses to do impressions: his Morpheus is a man playing at being Morpheus, and the whole performance is built on knowing that.

The Watchmen work remains the best of it, a soft-spoken husband in a series that keeps quietly rearranging what he is. He is more limited when a production only wants intensity, and the Aquaman films mostly give him a grudge and a helmet. Candyman and Ambulance are the better tests, both asking him to hold a film together while coming apart inside it.