Mamoudou Athie is an American actor born in Mauritania. He is most recognized for his portrayals of Dan Turner in the upcoming Netflix horror series Archive 81 (2022) and as the voice of Wade Ripple in the upcoming Pixar animated movie Elemental (2023).
Early Life
Mamoudou Athie was born in 1988, in Mauritania to a father who worked as a diplomat. His family was granted political refuge in the United States when he was only six months old. Athie spent his childhood in New Carrollton, Maryland, a town situated near Washington, D.C.
After completing the Two-Year Professional Actor Training Program at the William Esper Studio, he went on to earn his MFA from the Yale School of Drama in 2014.
Mamoudou Athie’s Career
Mamoudou Athie gained recognition in the American theater scene by performing in prestigious productions at venues such as the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Soho Repertory Theatre, and Broadway’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.
He then went on to secure roles on television and in movies, beginning with a supporting part in writer-director Michael Almereyda’s critically acclaimed film, Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story (2015), which starred Peter Sarsgaard, Winona Ryder, Taryn Manning, Anton Yelchin, John Leguizamo, Lori Singer, Dennis Haysbert, and Anthony Edwards, and premiered at the Sundance film festival.
In 2016, Athie was credited in Stella Meghie’s Canadian film Jean of the Joneses, which also starred Taylour Paige, Sherri Shepherd, and Gloria Reuben. The movie made its debut at the South by Southwest Film Festival.
The following year, Mamoudou Athie played a major role in writer-director Geremy Jasper’s Patti Cake$, alongside Danielle MacDonald and Cathy Moriarty. The film generated a lot of buzz at the Sundance Festival and sparked a bidding war among distributors, ultimately won by Fox Searchlight.
Athie was also featured in an independent film that premiered at a different festival. He worked alongside Juno Temple, Julia Garner, and Alessandro Nivola in Liz W. Garcia’s One Percent More Humid, which premiered at Tribeca in 2017.
Athie’s first major movie role was a supporting part in The Circle, a film adaptation of Dave Eggers’ novel, directed and co-written by James Ponsoldt. The movie also starred Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, John Boyega, Karen Gillan, Patton Oswalt, Glenne Headly, and the late Bill Paxton.
In the 2018 political film The Front Runner, Athie starred as a character based on a Washington Post journalist alongside Alfred Molina, while Hugh Jackman played the lead role of Gary Hart under the direction of co-writer Jason Reitman.
Additionally, Mamoudou Athie portrayed various characters, including Kristen Stewart, in the expensive sci-fi horror movie Underwater (2020), which resulted in significant financial losses for the production company 20th Century Fox.
Following his breakthrough leading role in writer-director Prentice Penny’s Netflix drama Uncorked (2020), Athie landed another starring role in a streaming movie, this time for Amazon Prime.
The film was part of Jason Blum’s Welcome to the Blumhouse film series and was a sci-fi horror drama called Black Box (2020), directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour.
Athie had his first major role in a highly successful film series when he played a supporting character in Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World Dominion (2022), which grossed over $1 billion and starred Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and BD Wong.
Mamoudou Athie made his voice-acting debut in the Disney/Pixar film Elemental (2023), alongside Leah Lewis and Catherine O’Hara. However, despite its $200 million budget, the movie did not do well at the box office.
Athie also appeared in Amazon’s upcoming legal drama, The Burial, alongside Jamie Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jurnee Smollett. The release date for this project has yet to be announced.
Mamoudou Athie collaborated with renowned Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos in the production of a yet-to-be-revealed drama, alongside cast members Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, and Margaret Qualley.
Net Worth
Despite being cast in smaller roles in big productions like Jurassic World and The Circle, Mamoudou consistently earns a decent income from his work in film and television. With numerous projects under his belt and more in the works, it is estimated that he makes around $450,000 annually, resulting in a net worth of approximately $3 million.
