Biography

Taylor Zakhar Perez was born on December 24, 1991 in South Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA to his parents. He and his siblings, Ron, Grant, Kaie, Koehn, Kristy, Jenna, and Maria, are Mexican-American. Before starting school as a child, his parents moved the family from Chicago to Chesterton, Indiana. While his younger sister Maria performed in Annie, he wanted to be a part of the production in some way, so he helped out with the show by learning how to use the light and sound equipment. Taylor attended Chesterton High School, where he was a nationally ranked and state champion swimmer and graduated in 2010. He was offered a swimming scholarship to Fordham University, but no longer had interest swimming. Taylor ended up moving to New York after high school regardless, where he started modeling. After a stint in New York City, he settled in Los Angeles, taking college courses while auditioning. Taylor also helped out his uncle Ron Zakhar, a prop stylist and set designer. While working with his uncle, he met some of Hollywood’s biggest stars including Jennifer Aniston, in which she explained to Taylor that interacting with fans is the easiest part of the job and is the “best way to give back to your fans.”

Taylor’s acting debut came in an episode of the popular Nickelodeon television series “iCarly” in 2012, playing Keith, Carly’s date before he’s taken out by a lemon with T-Bo’s lemon launcher. The next year, he played the role of Renaldo in an episode of “Suburgatory”, starring Jane Levy and Jeremy Sisto. In 2014, Taylor made his film debut in the straight-to-DVD comedy Alpha House as Trent. The film follows two fraternity pledges who get accepted into the biggest party fraternity on campus. Later that year, he played the Hot Guy in an episode of the MTV show “Awkward.”, starring Ashley Rickards and Beau Mirchoff. In 2015, Taylor appeared on “Young & Hungry” as Benji Rodriguez, the younger brother of Sofia. The series starred Emily Osment, Aimee Carrero, and Jonathan Sadowski. He portrayed Ari Stricks in an episode of “Code Black” as well as Zac in an episode of the YouTube Red mini-series “12 Deadly Days” the following year. Also in 2016, Taylor portrayed Mateo De La Vega in a pilot for “Cruel Intentions”, which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar from the original film.

2017 brought Taylor into his first recurring role as Noah Torres on the series “Embeds”, following five recent college graduates working as embedded reporters for various national news organizations on the presidential campaign trail. The same year, he played Jonathan Price in an episode of the mini-series “High Expectasians”, in which he also served as an associate producer for three of the six episodes. Next came role of Calvin in an episode of the popular ABC drama “Scandal” in its seventh and final season. 2020 brought Taylor his breakout role as Marco Peña in Netflix’s romantic comedy The Kissing Booth 2, following Elle during her senior year of high school, and starring Joey King and Jacob Elordi. In an interview, Taylor mentioned while he was waiting to hear about the role of Marco, he was also waiting to hear about the role of Jake Taylor in Netflix’s Work It starring Sabrina Carpenter, but after landing the role of Marco, the role of Jake inevitably went to Jordan Fisher. He would also be a part of the short film Philanthropy as Taylor, a model that a group of people are eating food off of.

Taylor reprised his role as Marco Peña in The Kissing Booth 3, which was released on August 11, 2021 on Netflix. He portrayed the role of Dustin in the comedy film 1UP, also starring Ruby Rose and Paris Berelc for Prime Video. The film follows a gamer who quits her college sports team due to sexism from her male counterparts. He would next appear alongside Ophelia Lovibond and Jake Johnson in the television comedy series “Minx” as Shane in its first season.

Taylor will next star as Alex Claremont-Dìaz opposite Nicholas Galitzine in Red, White & Royal Blue, an LGBTQ+ romantic comedy following the First Son of the United States and his long-standing feud with his nemesis, Prince Henry of Wales. The film is based on the best-selling novel by the same name and is set to release August 11, 2023 on Prime Video.

In his spare time, Taylor enjoys traveling around the world and keeping himself active by being adventurous. He also loves to ride his motorcycle and interact with his fans.