Y’lan Noel Biography
Y’lan Noel is an American actor best known for his appearance in the HBO television series Insecure and, in the 2018 horror film The First Purge.
He appeared in the film Insecure in 2015. In 2018, he was cast in The First Purge, which he considered as challenging
Y’lan Noel Age | Y Lan Noel Birthday
Noel was born on 19 August 1988 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He is 30 years old as of 2018
Y’lan Noel Wife
In the film Insecure, he is in love with Issa Rae, who appears as Issa Dee, Lawrence’s long term girlfriend. In real life, he appears to be so private with his dating life, he also does not have any social media accounts to track his relationship status, he is believed to be single
Y’lan Noel Kappa Alpha Psi
Noel is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, a collegiate Greek-letter fraternity with a predominantly African-American membership, an organization that began on January 5, 1911, at Indiana University Bloomington
Y’lan Noel The First Purge
Noel was cast as villain-turned-hero Dmitri in the 2018 American action horror film “The First Purge.”
Y’lan Noel Insecure
He was cast as Daniel King in a recurring role in the season 1 and as the main cast in the (season 2–present) of the American comedy-drama television series “Insecure”
Y’lan Noel Height
Noel is of Nigerian ancestry and wanted to be a rapper while growing up. He stands at the height of (178 cm) 5ft 10in
Y’lan Noel Movies
Year Title
2020 The Photograph
2018 The First Purge
2018 Slice
2018 The Weekend
2013 House of Another
2012 The Spartan King
Y’lan Noel Noel Interview
Y’lan Noel on ‘The First Purge’, ‘Insecure’, and Realizing He Loves Action Scenes
Source: collider.com
Collider: As an audience, we’ve gotten to know you through both Insecure and The First Purge, which are very different projects. As an actor, what’s it been like for you to take on two high-profile projects like that, that show very different sides and different aspects of you and what you can do?
Y’LAN NOEL: It’s been a privilege. Insecure is such a revelation because we get to see us being represented as super dynamic and regular, and not like extreme tropes or stereotypes, which is really cool. And then, being in The Purge, in a franchise that huge, although it’s anxiety-inducing, is really cool because it resonates with people, internationally. But then, from an acting perspective, what I want to do with my particular career, is that my favorite actors are character actors – Gary Oldman is my guy, I love him – and I just want to play roles that are completely different. I don’t want to be able to be boxed in. The experience is that much more fun when you’re playing something that’s outside of who you are. And with the preparation, the questions that you get to ask are so much more savory and juicy. That’s how I fell in love with acting. I could let myself go. I’m excited to do more of that.
As soon as The First Purge came out, people immediately started talking about how great you would be in a reboot of Blade. Did you see that people were basically dreaming of casting you as a bad-ass? How would you feel about taking on that role, if the opportunity were to arise?
NOEL: That would be amazing! I definitely saw it. To answer your question, yes, I saw it. That was hard not to see. It’s cool to be acknowledged, in that way, and Blade is huge. Anything of that nature, to be dream cast in, I feel fortunate. It would be something that I’d have to take seriously. That, or anything like it.
Had you ever thought about trying to be a part of one of these comic book or superhero films, prior to that, or was that first time you were like, “Yeah, I could do that”?
NOEL: To be honest, it was a real-time revelation, doing the action. I was like, “Why haven’t I been thinking about this?” I hadn’t, to be honest. I’d been thinking more about dramatic roles and even comedic roles, but I hadn’t really thought about action movies, in a serious way. I guess you always think about them because we’re inundated by them, these days, and they’re fun to watch, but I didn’t know how much fun they were to shoot and to be within the world of. I had fun doing the stunt choreography and the action, with the machine guns. It was all like a dance. It was in those moments where I was like, “Wow, this is really cool!” I had a pep to my step, walking back to set from the trailer and past the producers. It affirmed that I could do that type of stuff. I come from an athletic background, so it was a merging of me wanting to be a serious actor with also, at one point, wanting to be a serious athlete. It was cool to have those two worlds come together.
That’s really cool! One of the things I liked most about your character is how, in another story, he might’ve been the villain or the antagonist, but when you throw the Purge into everything, he realizes that he’s going to have to protect his community and the people that he cares about, which turns him into something of a hero. What was it like to get to play the villain and the hero, in the same character?
NOEL: Oh, man, it was the best. We categorize people as villains or heroes, but Dmitri is more like us than we think, where he’s just a walking contradiction. He’s just someone who we get to see, in real time, decide to act against his own hypocrisy. He’s called out, and then, within the same movie, he responds to the hypocrisy that Nya (Lex Scott Davis) talked to him about. He maybe acts quicker than most of us, but I feel like all of us are a mixed bag. Sometimes we have heroic qualities, and sometimes we have villainous qualities. In moments like this, when our back is against the wall, that’s when it’s truly revealed who we are.
The Purge franchise, whether it’s the films or the TV series, has some iconic imagery and moments that really stand out, as you go on these crazy thrill rides with each story. What was the moment or moments on set, where it felt like you were really part of a Purge movie?
NOEL: As soon as they start filling random areas with smoke and filling the street with smoke, and then they do this thing where they wet the roads to help the road pop on camera, and then they set the trash can on fire, that obviously helped me paint a picture. We shot in Buffalo, which is the perfect background for a horror movie. No disrespect to Buffalo, but it was just so eerie. There was never anybody outside. We were shooting at night, but there were just tumbleweeds. I don’t even know if it was a psychological thing, but I felt like I saw tumbleweeds, all the time. It was a perfect background for a Purge film. People start putting the masks on, and then you’re like, “Okay, it’s time to go.”
Y Lan Noel Photo
When you’re doing big fight scenes, do you get caught up in the moment and have to remind yourself to act while you’re doing them?
NOEL: Yeah. The thing is that you put yourself in those extreme circumstances, which is what The Purge is really good at doing, and you don’t have to act so much. You just have to breathe and take in what’s around you, and hopefully, the camera picks up the fact that you are really having a panic attack or a nervous breakdown, or whatever it is the character’s going through. They’re really good at making sure the actors feel like they’re actually in that circumstance if that makes any sense.