Player Profile

Yancey Arias - So You Wanna Be An Actor

Yancey Arias - So You Wanna Be An Actor

Fact File

Age: 35

Born: New York, NY

Resides: Los Angeles, CA

Featured in: Episode 2

Key stats: Kingpin, Die Hard 4, The Shield

Did you know?: Created the Lives to Save Foundation to aid in disaster relief for citizens of New Orleans.

Also in Episode: Johnny Chan, Mike Matusow, Shawn Sheikhan, Gus Hansen, Nicholas Gonzalez

Fact File

Yancey Arias’ acting career started with a line drive.

When Yancey was growing up, he dreamed of being a major league baseball player and he poured himself into the sport. During his high school freshman year, he was a pitcher for his J.V. team. However, his coach didn’t like it when Yancey tried out for the school musical, and liked it less when he got the lead.

Before a game, he gave Yancey an ultimatum - he had to pick between baseball or the play. During the game, a batter blasted one of Yancey’s pitches right back at him. It was a screaming line drive and Yancey made an amazing catch. It was the most exciting play of the game and Yancey couldn’t have been happier to make the out, but all his coach could see was cockiness. He cut Yancey there and then. Now free to join the play, Yancey started down the path he’s on now. And he couldn’t be happier.

After attending Carnegie Mellon, Yancey was cast as an understudy in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon. During its six-year-run, Yancey moved from understudy to lead. During those years, he was cast in many film and TV productions, most notably NYPD Blue, Law & Order, and The Sopranos.

In 2001, Yancey moved to Los Angeles and eventually won the lead in the critically acclaimed series Kingpin. He played Miguel Cadena, the reluctant head of a Mexican mafia family.

After Kingpin, Yancey joined the cast of the PBS series American Family. He played a doctor who shipped out to serve in the Iraq War. The show was one of the first dramas to touch on the war, and its affects on both Americans and Iraqis. Yancey’s other big TV role was in the series Thief, and next year he’ll star opposite Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard.

Yancey has played in poker tournaments around Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In 2006, he and a fellow Poker Equalizer player, Nicholas Gonzalez, co-hosted a celebrity poker tournament to help people affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Despite what happened in high school, nothing could stop Yancey’s love of baseball. He plays in a highly competitive hardball league in Los Angeles where he has a batting average of .188 and an ERA of 22.5.

He owes his old coach a huge debt of thanks.