MalikYoba will forever be synonymous with the hit cop series New York Undercover from the 1990s. I never missed an episode and remember my high school classmates having a big catch-up session about the show the morning after it aired. Such was the magnetism of the series.
Yep, I was an ardent fan, so you can imagine it was rather surreal to walk into a room, sit down and banter with this lanky actor.
While visibly older, Yoba has retained that authoritative edge and easily slips into playful mode during our tête-à-tête. Casually dressed and cocooned in a heated suite to shield him from the glacial temperatures outside, he asked me: “So, do you speak Afrikaans?”
This is his first trip to Amsterdam and he was suitably impressed with the city.
“I felt like this is my city when I came out of the airport. In fact, I felt like that in Cape Town as well when I was there in 1996,” he said.
He continued to tell me about his trip to SA, where he also mentored students from Johannesburg Secondary School.
“I was 28, or something like that. New York Undercover was on the air. I was there to meet with Darrell (James) Roodt because he wanted me to do a film with him and I was visiting some friends. That was one of the places where I first realised how far my image had travelled.
“I remember I had just come from Ethiopia on that same trip and I grew a beard and had hair on my head. After I landed in Joburg, I went into a little store to buy gum and the guy behind the counter was like: ‘Malik Yoba!’ And that was it.
“I also remember seeing the guy on SABC1 who was supposed to look like me doing the promos before the show.”
He had many more tales to tell, but we had to put that on hold.
After a slew of movies (Tyler Perry’s Why Did I get Married? franchise being his more recent work) and TV roles (Arrested Development, Girlfriends and Person of Interest), the actor and entrepreneur reached a juncture in his career where he either wanted to do something of substance, or nothing at all.
“Um, sci-fi isn’t a genre I would say I have been a fan of. As I kid I watched Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. As an adult I wasn’t dying to participate in sci-fi projects. Although, a few years ago I had started that sort of sci-fi show called Defying Gravity. I had just finished the 10th season a year earlier and it didn’t go anywhere. And, on a practical level, I wasn’t about to move to another country, state or city and leave my children for months,” he explains.
Though reluctant at first, it wasn’t long before he was on board with the project.
“After all of that, I’m glad I got to work in a show that I really enjoy doing. I feel it is the first show I have done that honoured my talent since New York Undercover.
“A lot of the shows I have done, I’m often the only black guy and I have often had to play second or third fiddle. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it is a strong ensemble cast.
“But I feel people have overlooked my abilities. And that is why I worked so hard outside of being an actor, because I’m not the type of person who can be defined by someone else’s view of me.”
Alphas is centred on an extraordinary team of people with unique abilities, which are harnessed by the Defence Criminal Investigation Service of the US Department of Defence, in a study headed up by leading neurologist and psychiatrist, Dr Lee Rosen (played by David Strathairn).
“I think the X-Men and Heroes premise goes out the window by the end of the first episode, or maybe the second.
“I think people will connect with the characters and the Alphas’ stories almost become a backdrop to the relationships we have with each other. The dynamics of us trying to figure out how to work together, knowing what to do and finding that vulnerability is what sustains the show,” he said.
Of his hyper-adrenal character, Bill Harken, who has superhuman strength, Yoba said: “He is not invincible. Physically, I’m the biggest person in the cast. He is the strong guy. He is also quite vulnerable and that is what I love to play.
“Bill isn’t in control of his ability and it has been a disability in fact. And there are all kinds of implications in his personal life.”
Yoba could have gone on talking about the sterling cast, the show’s scripting and the impact this series will have on viewers, but time wasn’t on our side.
All in all, I was somewhat glad my initial belief that he might be arrogant and difficult was unfounded. Laid-back, chilled and a charmer – that’s Yoba in a nutshell.
AZITA GHANIZADA
ARE you curious about her nationality? Well, Azita Ghanizada is an Afghan actress, who grew up in Virginia after her family fled their war-torn country when she was a tiny tot.
That she is gorgeous goes without saying.
With her curly mane caressing her shoulders and the actress sporting the most radiant smile, you immediately warm up to her. And she has the most infectious personality that is bound to stand her in good stead as she attempts to ascend the ranks in Hollywood’s cut-throat TV industry.
At 32, Ghanizada isn’t ashamed to admit she is still trying to find her feet. She was spotted in cameo roles in How I Met Your Mother, Entourage, Veronica Mars, Bones, Numb3rs, Psych and Castle, but bagging the role of Rachel Pirzad, who has a synesthete – an ability where she can enhance one sense and block out the others – in Alphas was a big deal for her.
“I grew up in Virginia and kind of got very quickly immersed in the lifestyle,” she said. “Although I didn’t understand why I wasn’t blonde for a long time and my parents, who spoke very fast, got strange looks from everybody.
“I realised we were very different and I quickly learnt how to speak English by watching TV and I would speak for my mother and translate in Farsi for her.
“Yeah, I had a very interesting upbringing. I remember, we would go to the airport and pick up relatives coming from the refugee camp and everybody would cry. It was the mid-1980s and they were escaping the war.
“When you are a little girl and you are seeing all this real-life conflict, and they bring you photographs of children missing limbs and say, ‘This is what you escaped’, you realise you have a blessed life.”
And her lifestyle was very modern, too, but she still felt for her people back home.
“I didn’t wear a burka. I wasn’t forced to sneak into basements and tried to learn how to read and write. I didn’t have to shave my head and have to pretend to be a boy. I wasn’t a child bride at nine, married off to a 60-year-old man. I have not experienced those things.
“But I have so much empathy. I feel so connected to my roots.”
Although her parents would have preferred her to follow a career as a journalist, as she was “a quirky writer”, they eventually warmed up to her decision to be an actress.
“I would watch television with my mother, who would sit there and tweeze her eyebrows. And I would watch Joan Collins in Dynasty instead of the cartoons.
“All those people slapping each other… it was a good series. I learnt everything through TV and was so connected to those characters. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life.”
While she had less than a day to prep for the Alphas audition, Ghanizada, who was at a very emotional place in her life at the time as her father had just had his fourth heart attack that week, simply tapped into her raw emotions and clinched the part.
“They didn’t expect me to deliver the performance I did and after that they kept changing Rachel. I think they liked the fact that I was raw, emotional and ballsy.”
Talking about her character, Ghanizada said: “We first don’t know what the Alphas are. We just think they are weird.
“Rachel’s ability makes her awkward. In meeting Dr Rosen, she feels she has found an alternate family and is being understood for the first time.
“I think the audience will identify with the character’s journey and the emotional trajectory they go through.”
On her career plans, she said: “I’m at the very beginning of my acting career. I didn’t look for any short cuts when I moved to Hollywood. I worked 15 jobs and started in commercials. I did a little hosting, a short film… and I lost a lot of big movies… and I guest-starred and did a soap.
“I did everything you do, unlike a George Clooney. I’m starting at the bottom of the rung and I am grateful for all I have.”
Humble, dazzling and level-headed, Ghanizada will no doubt make inroads, especially with a second instalment of Alphas on the cards.
• Alphas airs on Universal (DStv channel 108) on Sunday, March 25 at 8pm.