Taylor Lautner

Taylor Daniel Lautner (born February 11, 1992) is an American actor.

Lautner was born on February 11, 1992, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Deborah and Daniel Lautner.

His mother works for a software development company, while his father was a Midwest Airlines pilot.

He has one younger sister named Makena.

Raised as a Roman Catholic, Lautner has Dutch, French, and German ancestry, and has stated that he has "distant" Native American ancestry (specifically Odawa and Potawatomi, both Anishinaabe peoples) through his mother.

He grew up in Hudsonville, Michigan, a town near Grand Rapids.

He has stated that he was bullied in school because he was an actor.

He commented, "I just had to tell myself 'I can't let this get to me. This is what I love to do. And I'm going to continue doing it.'"

He took his first karate class at the age of six.

A year later, he attended the national karate tournament in Louisville, Kentucky, where he met Michael Chaturantabut, the founder of Xtreme Martial Arts.

Chaturantabut invited Lautner to a camp he held at University of California, Los Angeles.

Lautner trained with Chaturantabut for several years, earning his black belt by the age of eight, and winning several junior world championships.

The late 2000s saw Lautner become a teen idol and sex symbol, after extensively changing his physique to keep the role of Jacob Black in further Twilight installments, and generating media attention for his looks.

Months later, he played Eliot Murtaugh in Cheaper by the Dozen 2, which was panned by critics, being named one of the "Worst Films of the 2000s" by Rotten Tomatoes.

After returning from Canada filming the latter movie, Lautner said he realized his newfound fame, from Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

In 2001, Lautner first appeared in the made-for-television film, Shadow Fury.

He then got a voice-over job in a commercial for Rugrats Go Wild.

He then appeared in small television roles on The Bernie Mac Show, My Wife and Kids, and Summerland.

Lautner then earned voice-over roles in animated series such as Danny Phantom, Duck Dodgers, and What's New, Scooby-Doo?.

The same year, he earned his first breakout role, starring in the film, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.

Lautner spent three months on location in Austin, Texas, to film the movie, which was received with negative reviews from critics, and was a minor international success.

After that became tiring, Lautner and his family decided to move to California for a month, to try it out, before moving to Santa Clarita, California, in 2002.

In his first months after moving to Los Angeles, Lautner appeared in small television roles, small film roles, and ads and commercials.

Lautner began his acting career playing bit parts in comedy series such as The Bernie Mac Show (2003) and My Wife and Kids (2004), before having voice roles in television series like What's New, Scooby-Doo? (2005) and Danny Phantom (2005).

He appeared in an ISKA karate event televised on ESPN in 2003 that was later lampooned on the sports-comedy show Cheap Seats that first aired in 2006.

In junior high, Lautner—who was involved in karate, baseball and hip-hop dance—won the award for "Best Smile" and played in the school's Turkey Bowl American Football game.

He went to public school at Valencia High School in Santa Clarita, California until his sophomore year.

Chaturantabut, who once portrayed the Blue Ranger in Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, suggested to Lautner that he take up acting.

For a few years, the Lautners flew from Michigan to Los Angeles for auditions when his talent agency called, and returned to Grand Rapids for school sometimes the same day.

Lautner balanced karate and acting with being on the football and baseball teams at his school, and taking up jazz and hip-hop dance.

In 2005, he appeared in the film Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and starred in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.

However, Lautner was nominated at the 2006 Young Artist Awards for Best Performance in a Feature Film by a Leading Actor.

For the film, Lautner choreographed all of his fight scenes after director Robert Rodríguez learned of his extensive martial arts training.

In 2006 he appeared in the show Love Inc. and the TV special He's a Bully, Charlie Brown.

He gained fame for playing werewolf Jacob Black in The Twilight Saga film series (2008–2012).

In 2010, he was ranked second on Glamour ' s "The 50 Sexiest Men of 2010" list, and fourth on People ' s "Most Amazing Bodies" list.

Also in the same year, Lautner was named the highest-paid teenage actor in Hollywood.

He also starred in the 2011 action film Abduction.

From 2014 to 2018, Lautner starred in the BBC sitcom Cuckoo as the son of the titular character.

In 2016, he played a leading role, Dr. Cassidy Cascade, in the second season of FOX black comedy series Scream Queens.