PAGE 26 • TV
THE BULLETIN • JUNE 3 - 9, 2021
What’s Available NOW On
“Movie: The World to Come”
From Swedish filmmaker Mona Fastvold
(“The Sleepwalker,” “The Childhood of
a Leader”) comes this 2020 drama set in
the mid-19th century America, where
two farmers’ wives (Katherine Waterston,
Vanessa Kirby) find themselves drawn
to each other amid the hardship and
isolation of the coastal frontier. Casey
Affleck and Christopher Abbott are also
in the cast.
“Movie: The Mountain
Between Us”
Director Hany Abu-Assad’s 2017 survival
drama stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet
as a neurosurgeon and a journalist
who board a small private plane to Salt
Lake City after their original flights are
grounded by a storm. Unfortunately,
their fragile aircraft crashes in the
vast expanse of Utah’s High Uintas
Wilderness. Beau Bridges and Dermot
Mulroney are also in the cast.
Checking in with
YASSIR LESTER
BY GEORGE DICKIE
“Madagascar: A Little Wild”
Season 2 of this animated series
continues to follow the early years of the
Madagascar heroes Alex the Lion, Marty
the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe and
Gloria the Hippo, as they grow up in a
rescue habitat at the Central Park Zoo.
Tucker Chandler, Amir O’Neil, Luke
Lowe and Shaylin Becton head the voice
cast. (ORIGINAL)
Yassir Lester considers himself a writer and stand-up comic
who happens to get nice acting jobs working with talented
people. Not an actor, per se.
But he knows he’s got a good thing going. In co-starring in
two current series – as trader Yassir in Season 3 of the Sunday
Showtime comedy “Black Monday” (on which he also serves
as a writer) and providing the voice of Yangzi in Season 2 of
Fox’s animated Monday sitcom “Duncanville” – the 36-year-
old Georgia native stays busy year-round and gets to count
the likes of Don Cheadle, Amy Poehler, Regina Hall, Rashida
Jones, Casey Wilson, Paul Scheer and Andrew Rannells as his
colleagues.
“I keep getting thrown into these situations where it’s
not just everyone on this show is new,” Lester explains. “It’s
people who are super-famous and established and then I have
to run and catch up with them, essentially, or try my hardest.
... Just all these people who are just so good and are in it for
real and know their voice and know their timing and have
done this. And here’s me just putting on a goofy little (voice)
hoping it works out.”
“Black Monday,” in particular, gives him ample
opportunity to stretch his comedy muscles both as a writer
and an actor. Creators Jordan Cahan and David Caspe
assembled a cast capable of going off script and doing
“Love, Victor”
The coming-of-age drama returns for
its sophomore round with a resolution
to the Season 1 cliffhanger that left off
with Victor Salazar (Michael Cimino)
finally coming out to his conservative
parents. He must deal with not only
their reactions but also that of his heart-
broken ex-girlfriend Mia (Rachel Naomi
Hilson) while also experiencing the joy
of his relationship with Benji (George
Sear). (ORIGINAL)
considerable improv, which plays into Lester’s background
as a stand-up – someone who can think on his feet and be
funny off the cuff.
“You’d be shocked how bad of a joke writer you could be
and get away with it solely with performance,” Lester says.
“And acting is literally just performance. And I’m not a
phenomenal actor but I can perform well enough to convince
people that I’m OK. And that all comes from stand-up
comedy.”
Name: Yassir Lester
Birth date: June 22, 1984
Birthplace: Miami
Family ties: Raised in Marietta, Ga., by a single
mother
TV credits include: “My Super-Overactive
Imagination,” “After the Party,” “Key and Peele,”
“Literally Can’t Even,” “Girls,” “Making History,”
“Champions,” “The Mindy Project,” “Brooklyn Nine-
Nine,” “United We Fall,” “black-ish,” “I Am Frenchie”
Movie credits: “The Bet” (2016)
Writing credits: “The Late Night Fix With Yassir
Lester,” “Mr. Pickes,” “The Carmichael Show,” “Girls,”
“Black Monday,” “Loudermilk,” “Earth to Ned,” “Kenan”