Articulate talent Yousef Naseer & Danyal Zafar take the spotlight in BBC’s Man Like Mobeen!
Rising Articulate star Yousef Naseer, 19, stars as Young Mobeen in the final season of the Bafta-nominated comedy created by and starring Guz Khan.
Yousef grew up and lives in Bradford, and recently played the role of Ateeq in the BBC hit drama, Virdee, which was set and filmed in the city.
The young actor started drama classes aged eight at our own Articulate Drama School.
Yousef’s first major role was in Fox’s Tyrant, a TV series filmed in Budapest. His overseas filming continued with a role in Sky’s Strike Back, and he’s also had great success in children’s TV shows in the UK with the Tracy Beaker spin-off on CBBC, The Dumping Ground, which he filmed across several years, and as Saleem Paracha in Channel 4’s Ackley Bridge. He’s also appeared in the BBC shows, Casualty and Doctors.
He has just finished filming on the feature film The Trial starring alongside Paul Kaye.
Yousef said: “I wouldn’t have had these opportunities if Articulate wasn’t in Bradford. Articulate is why I’m here today, especially as a young Asian lad. It’s very easy to get sucked into the same crowd that many of my friends unfortunately find themselves in, a rabbit hole of drugs, crime. Articulate has played the biggest part in my success, in getting to where I am now.”
The final season also features rising young actor Danyal Zafar, 19, as the character Moped. He got the role after responding to an open call for auditions on Instagram.
From Birmingham, Man Like Mobeen marks Danyal’s debut screen role after studying a BTEC in Acting at college. Danyal is newly represented by us.
Danyal said: “I was an introverted kid, and started acting in primary school to help with my confidence, I was always very shy. When I started doing drama at school, I used to be a whole different person, so I continued it.”
The series he feels is helping break new ground for the next generation of British Asian actors: “I’m from the Pakistani community, so acting is very looked down upon in my community of South Asian people. It’s a cultural hangover, where doctors and lawyers are seen to be proper jobs.”
Danyal hopes to build a career in acting as part of a growing movement to help strengthen diversity on screen: “I’m a hundred percent proud to help break down barriers and showing that other South Asian actors can also be on the screen because there’s now an audience that’s growing. Before, we had a show called Citizen Khan that grew a little bit of an audience. Then Man Like Mobeen came, and now Virdee’s come, and Ackley Bridge. So, there is an Asian audience that is growing in the UK.”
Danyal has also just finished filming a small part in the upcoming film, I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, starring Anthony Boyle (Manhunt, Masters of the Air).
Man Like Mobeen follows Mobeen (Guz Khan), a former drug dealer living in Birmingham, and follows his efforts to live a good life as a Muslim while raising his younger sister, with fans claiming it ‘phenomenal’ and a ‘must-see.’
Don’t forget to check out Man Like Mobeen if you haven’t already, and keep an eye out for our incredible talent! If you want to learn more about our work and casting agency, head to our representation pages.
