Emmy-winning actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has enormous gratitude for what one of today’s most popular and acclaimed filmmakers — “Elvis” and “Moulin Rouge!” director Baz Luhrmann — saw in him and did for him at the start of his movie acting career.

And ever since landing a juicy role in Luhrmann’s “The Get Down” 2016 Netflix series, he’s been on a roll. This year alone, he’s collecting raves for two very different performances in high-profile series: “Man on Fire,” dropping April 30 on Netflix;  and Disney+’s “Wonder Man.”

“(Luhrmann)  shot me like a star,” said Abdul-Matten. “I was fresh out of school and bright-eyed and very excited and he was extremely patient with me,” he recalls about his time working on “The Get Down.”

Acting, though, wasn’t always Abdul-Matten’s primary source of income.

The former Bay Area resident and UC Berkeley grad pursued that passion after he got laid off in 2008 from his city planning job in San Francisco. He put his Cal architecture degree aside and tapped a thespian talent he had explored while at UC Berkeley.

Shortly after graduating from the Yale School of Drama, the New Orleans native who grew up in West Oakland landed a doozy of a part, portraying flashy Clarence “Cadillac” Caldwell in “The Get Down,” a jammin’ series co-created and executive produced by Luhrmann and set around the wild disco and R&B music scene in the Bronx.

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Abdul Mateen was ready for his close up, and Luhrmann gave it to him.

“He made it his job to shoot me as Cadillac like a star,” he said. “And I think when people saw his vision and when they saw Cadillac, I think they believed in the potential of whoever (that) actor was.”

He credits both his faith in God and Luhrmann’s guidance to helping propel his career forward from there.

“A good director friend of mine said that the camera will tell you who loves you, and (Luhrmann) shot me like he actually cared for my well being as an actor and as a performer,” the 39-year-old said during a Zoom conversation.

From there, the roles kept on coming, with him playing “Aquaman’s” nemesis Black Manta opposite Jason Momoa in 2018 and reprising it again in the 2023 sequel. He went on to portray Bobby Seale in the 2020 Netflix drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” appeared in Jordan Peele’s “Us” and “The Greatest Showman,” among others. He got a real boost with his Emmy-winning turn as Cal Abar and Doctor Manhattan in HBO’s highly praised and daring “Watchman” series in 2019.

His career caught fire and shows no signs of abating.

The  seven-episode “Man on Fire” is the third adaptation of A.J. Quinnell’s pulpy 1980 thriller centered on burnt-to-the-crisp former mercenary John Creasey as he seeks to avenge the wrongs done to him while helping save a teen with a target on her back in Brazil. He’s tackling a character on which two previous actors — Denzel Washington in 2004 and Scott Glenn in 1984 — put their stamp in different takes on the story, one set in Mexico City and the other in Milan (the book’s setting).

It’s not the first time that Abdul-Mateen jumped into the shoes of a role popularized by another actor. In 2021’s “The Matrix: Resurrections,” he portrayed Morpheus, a part made famous by Laurence Fishburne in the first three films.

Abdul-Mateen said he appreciated following up with the more comedic “Wonder Man,” in which he stars as floundering Los Angeles actor Simon Williams with superpower abilities, opposite Sir Ben Kingsley as secretive thespian mentor Trevor Slattery, with the more action-packed thriller “Man on Fire.”

John Creasey couldn’t be more different from Simon Williams. Creasy’s a tormented alcoholic replaying a terrible event from his past when he is thrust into the role of vigilant protector of his friend’s daughter Poe (Billie Boullet), who’s an eyewitness to an apartment building bomb attack.

He saw complexity in Creasey.

“When I leaned in closer, I found an incredible human character who was wrapped up in all of these layers of hardness. I saw a character who was suffering, but who also had a very, very good heart (and) who was a decent man underneath all of that. And that’s what really drew me to (him.)”

The other reason was how ill-prepared and ill-equipped Creasey was in helping Poe.

“What was very exciting to me was seeing how the heck he was going to get out of there and keep everyone alive. That question kept me on the edge of my seat because you never know what was going to happen with a character as mercurial as John.”

While he considers that demanding “Watchman” role to be one of his most physical performances, becoming Creasey required him to do martial arts, hand-to-hand combat and jujitsu. But Creasey was no model of mental or physical health by any means.

The former track athlete said he underwent more intense conditioning and training for “Watchmen” and “Aquaman.”

“For ‘Aquaman,’ I had to be in good aerobic shape, but also to be able to wear the very heavy, heavy suit. This one was interesting because Creasey has been coming off of a bender. He was not a man who had been taking care of his body… At the same time, he had a very particular set of skills.”

Abdul-Mateen honed his acting skills prior to making that leap into movies and series on Bay Area stages. He said that experience, including his playing Antonio in Lafayette Town Hall Theater’s 2011 production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” to be invaluable.

He attended Hoover Elementary School in Oakland, but the acting bug didn’t bite him until he was at UC Berkeley when he took an “Intro to Acting” class in fall 2005.

“I was looking for an easy A and someone from the track team recommended that. So I went on a whim and got in and it turned out to be pretty good. That’s when I started thinking about it.”

Upon reflection, acting was a perfect fit for him.

“I was always quiet and reserved, but I had this other side of me that could  jump into the middle of a group and lead the charge so to speak. I sort of always had this little light that I wanted to shine. And so when I chose acting, it chose me back.”