Why Moss Yankov From Florida Man Looks So Familiar
All seven episodes of "Florida Man" premiered to Netflix on April 13, 2023, landing it on the streaming service's Top 10 list shortly after its release. Jason Bateman is credited as an executive producer on "Florida Man," though whereas he also starred in "Ozark" — the last show he produced for Netflix — he's focusing on a behind-the-scenes role on his latest streaming project.
Édgar Ramírez stars in "Florida Man" as Mike Valentine, an ex-cop in debt to a mobster who sends Mike from Pennsylvania to Florida to look for his partner Delly (Abbey Lee). Complicating the job is the fact that Delly ran away after having an affair with Mike. Furthermore, the series delivers on its title, which references the preponderance of wacky news headlines starting with "Florida man," by introducing Mike to a rogue's gallery of unusual characters. All the while, mob boss Moss Yankov, portrayed by Emory Cohen, looms large over Mike's eventful Florida stay.
If Cohen looks familiar in "Florida Man," it's likely from a body of work in which he oftentimes plays rebellious or otherwise dangerous characters across both TV and film.
Emory Cohen plays A.J. Cross in The Place Beyond the Pines
Emory Cohen kicked off his acting career in 2008, with a part in Ezra Miller's debut feature "Afterschool." Four years later, in 2012, Cohen appeared in a supporting role in director Derek Cianfrance and Ryan Gosling's "Blue Valentine" follow-up, "The Place Beyond the Pines."
Gosling plays a professional motorcycle rider named Luke, who turns to a life of crime with his boss, played by Ben Mendelsohn, to make ends meet. This leads him to a fateful encounter with cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper). Shortly afterword, the film jumps ahead to a time in which Avery has a teenaged son named A.J., played by Emory Cohen.
In the second half of the movie, A.J. himself goes on something of a minor crime spree, while entangling himself with Jason (Dane DeHaan), Luke's son. How A.J. and Jason's dynamic plays out, and how it reflects the lives their fathers lived, ultimately becomes key to the film's climax.
Cohen is Saoirse Ronan's love interest in the 2015 adaptation of the novel Brooklyn
In 2015, director John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Hornby collaborated on "Brooklyn," an adaptation of a 2009 novel by Colm Tóibín. Hornby himself is a novelist too, most widely-known as the author of "High Fidelity," "Fever Pitch," and "About a Boy." The story of "Brooklyn" revolves around the experience of Irish immigration to the United States in the 1950s.
Saoirse Ronan is the film's lead as Eilis Lacey, a woman who moves to New York City early on in the film, before figuring out that she still feels attached to her hometown of Enniscorthy in Southern Ireland. Meanwhile, Emory Cohen plays an Italian-American plumber named Tony Fiorello who Eilis meets and falls for at a dance. While Eilis' allegiance to her family is pulling her back to her hometown, her budding romance with Tony is foremost in her growing attachment to her new life in Brooklyn, placing Cohen's character at the heart of the film's core tension.
He's one of the leads on the Netflix series The OA
In 2019, Netflix announced its decision to cancel sci-fi drama "The OA" after its second season. Whereas oftentimes showrunners will anticipate early cancellations and end a season in a manner that could serve as a series finale if needed, this was very much not the case with "The OA," which now ends on an unresolved cliffhanger.
"The OA" Season 1 introduces viewers to Prairie Johnson (Brit Marling), a mysterious woman who assembles a small cult of sorts out of high school students. Prairie soon reveals to her followers that a scientist named Hap (Jason Isaacs) kidnapped her when she was 21, and held her captive for seven years while studying certain metaphysical properties of the universe. In flashbacks to her time in captivity, Prairie bonds with a football player named Homer Roberts, portrayed by Emory Cohen. Slowly, Homer becomes Prairie's closest confidant, and key to Prairie's escape, leading into the events of the show's present. With "The OA" now canceled, Homer's character arc too will seemingly forever remain unresolved.
He's the notorious black metal architect Varg Vikernes in Lords of Chaos
In 2018, Jonas Åkerlund, a prolific music video director who's worked with artists ranging from Madonna to Candlemass, adapted to film a 1998 book about the creation of the black metal scene in Norway, titled "Lords of Chaos." Whereas the book is a nonfiction account of a musical genre's history, Åkerlund's film is a biopic, casting actors as some of the most well-known — and in many cases notorious — early contributors to the Norwegian black metal scene.
Those with any degree of familiarity with the black metal genre are likely already familiar with Varg Vikernes, who recorded under the name Burzum. Vikernes is played by Emory Cohen in the film. As "Lords of Chaos" recounts, Vikernes both burned churches and famously murdered Euronymous, another influential black metal guitarist, played here by Rory Culkin.
While many of Cohen's film characters are rough around the edges, Vikernes is perhaps his deepest descent into darkness, given his real-life counterpart's well-known criminality. Of course, roles like this mean that Cohen's turn as a mobster in the tonally lighter "Florida Man" becomes quaint by comparison.