Anatol Yusef

Anatol Yusef (born 20 July 1978) is an English stage, film and television actor, writer, director. He is best known for his work at The Royal Shakespeare Company, for his portrayal of Meyer Lansky in the television series Boardwalk Empire, and channel 4's Southcliffe.

Anatol Yusef
Born	(1978-07-20) 20 July 1978 London, UK
Education	Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (2000)
Occupation	Actor

Biography

Yusef was born in London, UK. His father emigrated from Cyprus to London at the age of 11 while his mother was born in Bethnal Green, London.[1][2][3]

As a teen, Yusef found early work in television shows including Jeeves and Wooster, Grange Hill, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. And films, Batman and Aliens (director's cut). He then trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. While in school he worked on a television show, Thief Takers and was a finalist in the BBC Carleton Hobbs Radio Award.[4]

Upon graduating in 2000, Yusef was offered a role in Fred Schepisi's award-winning film Last Orders, playing the younger self of Bob Hoskins' "Ray" and working with British actors Sir Michael Caine, Dame Helen Mirren, Ray Winstone, David Hemmings, and Tom Courtenay.[5]

He became a resident company member with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the RSC's production of King Lear, Nicholas de Jongh of the London Evening Standard claimed "Anatol Yusef's tremendous Cornwall, the best [he] [had] ever seen".[6]

In 2006, Yusef's performance as Mercutio in Bill Bryden's Romeo and Juliet at the Birmingham Rep was heralded as "sparkl[ing]"[7] and "promisingly imaginative".[8]

In 2008, Yusef appeared in the title role of a New York off-off Broadway production of Richard III, and was described by Backstage as "a superlative actor" and "magnetic".[9] Anatol has since remained in New York City. He has worked both throughout New York City, and at The Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., his most recent production being A Movement of the Soul, playing Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, for which he learned American Sign Language.

From 2009-2012 he was co-founder and joint-artistic director of Fixitsolife Theater Company in Manhattan, New York. Mounting two productions.

In 2010 he was cast as Meyer Lansky in HBO's Boardwalk Empire, first appearing in Episode 7 of Season 1, "Home" and recurring throughout the remainder of the series. In an interview with The Morton Report, Yusef described Lansky as self-educated, a massively intelligent overachiever and "a ruthless, ruthless man".[2] Anatol's characterization of Mr. Lansky has been recognized in many publications, including author and critic Clive James's article on Martin Scorsese,[10] as well as Michael Noble's review of the show on Den of Geek.[11]

In 2014 he appeared in Channel 4's BAFTA-nominated Southcliffe, receiving special mention in an article by IndieWire on the best TV episodes of 2014.[12]

In 2016, Anatol narrated the European championship series on Howler Radio, a collection of five podcast narratives written by a selection football journalists, the most popular being "The Summer Football Came Home".[13] On top of this, he portrayed DeBlanc on AMC's Preacher.

In 2020, his first animated short, Hello My Love, will be released. He continues work with charities such as Solving Kids Cancer and Friends of Firefighters.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Last Orders	Young Ray
2003	Ten Minutes	Peter	Short
2003	The Gathering	The Gathering
2006	O Jerusalem	Major Tell
2009	The Reward	Felix	Short
2011	Corner Shop	Danny	Short
2016	Bastille Day	Tom Luddy
2020	You can't Win	Dirty Dick

Television

Year	Title	Role
1990, 1992	Jeeves and Wooster	Sydney Blumenfield	Seasons 1 and 3
1993	The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles	Hubert Van Hook	Episode: "Benares, January 1910"
1995	Grange Hill	Mark	Episode #18.4
1999	Thief Takers	Aziz	Episode: "Shadows"
2000	Second Sight: Kingdom of the Blind	Sandwich Shop Owner	TV movie
2002, 2006	The Bill	Rick Lessalles, Kevin Mann	2 episodes
2003	Trial & Retribution	PC Barry Skinner	2 episodes
2003	The Afternoon Play: Turkish Delight	Ahmed
2010–2014	Boardwalk Empire	Meyer Lansky	31 episodes
2013	Southcliffe	Paul Gould	TV miniseries
2016	Preacher	Deblanc	Season 1

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	The Mysteries	Herod/Cain
2000	Under Milk Wood	Rev. Eli Jenkins, Dai Bread
2000	After Miss Julie	John
2002	Blackbird	Sarhad
2004	Best of Motives	Ahmed
2005	King Lear	Duke of Cornwall
2005	Romeo and Juliet	Sampson
2005	Macbeth	Banquo
2006	Romeo and Juliet	Mercutio
2007	Startled Response	Umut
2008	Richard III	Richard III
2009	Moonlight	Jake
2010	Proof	Hal
2010	The Science of Guilt	Kevin
2011	A Movement of the Soul	Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet
2012	Massacre (Sing to Your Children)	Joe
2017	Hamlet	Laertes, The Player King
2018	The Winter's Tale	Leontes

References

1. DigiTurk. "Boardwalk Empire'da Türk ışığı". Archived from the original on 10 January 2012. Retrieved 15 January 2012.
2. The Morton Report. "He's Not a Gangster, He Just Plays One on TV: An Interview with Boardwalk Empire's Anatol Yusef". Retrieved 1 October 2011.
3. work. "Londralı Türk Hollywood yolunda". Archived from the original on 5 April 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
4. "Bristol Old Vic Theatre School Graduates". Winterbourne. Archived from the original on 8 May 2010.
5. "Last Orders Cast". IMDB.
6. de Jongh, Nicholas. "King Lear". Evening Standard. Retrieved 1 July 2004.
7. Uusitalo, Irja. "Romeo and Juliet". The Stage. Retrieved 6 October 2005.
8. Dunnett, Roderic. "Romeo and Juliet, Repertory Theatre, Birmingham". The Independent.
9. Cohen, Ron. "Richard III". Backstage. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
10. James, Clive. "Martin Scorsese: American god". Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
11. Noble, Michael. "Boardwalk Empire season 4 episode 4 review: All In". Den of Geek. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
12. The Playlist Staff. "The 15 Best TV Episodes Of 2014". IndieWire. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
13. "The Summer Football Came Home: The Story of Euro 96".

External links

• Anatol Yusef on IMDb