Biography
Talented and prolific character actor Yancey Arias essayed confident and powerful men on both sides of the legal fence in such television projects as "Kingpin" (NBC, 2003), "Revenge" (ABC, 2011-15), "Bosch" (Amazon Video, 2014- ) and "Queen of the South" (USA Network, 2016- ). Born to Colombian and Puerto Rican parents on June 27, 1971 in New York City, Arias was initially drawn to baseball and art, but after being cast as the lead in his school musical, he made acting his primary focus. He was an active participant in school productions at St. John's Preparatory School and at Moore Catholic High School, and trained for four years with the summer theater camp Stagedoor Manor before enrolling at Carnegie Mellon University as an acting and musical theater major. Financial hardship forced him to drop out after two years, but Arias used the opportunity to immerse himself in the pursuit of a professional career. His first break came in 1992 when he was cast as an understudy and ensemble player in the Broadway production of "Miss Saigon"; from there, he worked steadily in guest and supporting turns in numerous New York-based television productions, including "One Life to Live" (ABC, 1968-2013), "Law & Order" (NBC, 1990-2010) and "The Sopranos" (HBO, 1999-2007). Determined to have a say in the path of his career, Arias also produced and starred in two independent features, "Destination Unknown" (1997) and "Home Invaders" (2001), with Keith David, Judy Reyes and Luis Guzman. He returned to Broadway, this time as a lead opposite Mandy Patinkin and Toni Collette, in the original production of "The Wild Party," shortly before decamping for Los Angeles. There, he co-starred opposite Edward James Olmos in the PBS drama series "An American Family" (2002-04) and earned top billing as the ambitious head of a drug cartel in "Kingpin" for producer David Mills. The miniseries begat a short-lived weekly series, but Arias rebounded from its cancellation with supporting turns on "The Division" (Lifetime, 2001-04) and the critically acclaimed "Thief" (FX, 2006). From there, Arias worked a tireless schedule of appearances in features and television; the former included "Live Free or Die Hard" (2007) and "Cesar Chavez" (2014), which cast him as United Farm Workers leader Gilbert Padilla, and "Hands of Stone" (2016), for which he played boxer Benny Huertas. On television, Arias was a series regular for the first season of the revived "Knight Rider" (NBC, 2008), and enjoyed a host of recurring roles on series like "Revenge," which cast him as a disgraced senator, and the Emmy-nominated "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot" (ABC.com, 2016). In 2016, he joined the cast of "Bosch" in its second season to play fictional Los Angeles Mayor Hector Ramos while also holding down a recurring role as a former Special Forces officer turned drug cartel lieutenant on "Queen of the South." During this period, Arias also continued to produce his own projects, and made his directorial debut on the 2010 short "Baby."
