Best Of: ‘Wonder Man’ actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II / John Coltrane centennial

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was two weeks into celebrating his Emmy nomination for the Marvel series Wonder Man when Disney canceled the show — after a second season had already been announced. He laughs about it. "I don't really reflect back so far," he says. "When you first say my name, you go through the story, and then you end it off: 'and he just lost his job.'" Getting laid off is how he found acting in the first place. He was a city planner in San Francisco, laid off after eleven months, and that sent him to the Yale School of Drama. "Every time I do, it turns into something better," he says. "So I wonder what this one's gonna turn into."

The Marvel dollar and a canceled series

When Marvel first approached Abdul-Mateen, he told himself he had only "one Marvel dollar to spend." He wanted a role that would stand the test of time, not a one-off. He asked himself whether Wonder Man was that role. Looking back, he calls it a dollar well spent. The series was not a typical Marvel story: almost no action, shot like an indie film, a comedy about auditioning. His character, Simon Williams, is a working actor in Los Angeles, years in without a break, whose battles are with casting directors and his own head. Abdul-Mateen says he cannot think of any role he has pursued as hard as Simon pursued Wonder Man. But he admits to lying on his own resume back in 2012 — exaggerating skill