Taylor Zakhar Perez

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Taylor Zakhar Perez is an American actor born December 24, 1991, in Chicago. He grew up in Chesterton, Indiana, where he attended Chesterton High School and was a national‑level swimmer. He has a diverse heritage, with Mexican and Middle Eastern roots and broader Mediterranean ancestry; his mother is Croatian and his father Hungarian. He is the sixth of eight children and helped out at a family auto‑body shop on weekends, changing tires.

He passed on a swimming scholarship to Fordham University to attend UCLA, where he studied Spanish culture and community and minored in film and television. He began acting in musicals and later appeared in TV roles starting in 2012.

Perez’s breakout came with The Kissing Booth 2 in 2020, where he played Marco Valentin Peña. He took guitar and choreography lessons for the role. The film became Netflix’s most‑streamed film in its opening weekend, and 66 million households watched it in the first four weeks. He reprised the role in The Kissing Booth 3 in 2021.

In 2022 he starred as Shane Brody in Minx on HBO Max. In 2023 he played Alex Claremont‑Diaz in Red, White & Royal Blue on Amazon Prime Video; the film released on August 11, 2023 and quickly became one of the platform’s most‑watched titles, with a sequel in development.

Perez has also worked on other projects. He co‑starred in 1Up (2022) with Ruby Rose. During the pandemic, he helped design face masks with Variant Malibu to cut waste and support a Chicago charity serving disabled people and families in the Hispanic community.

In February 2024, he was named a SAG Awards ambassador, and in March 2024 he signed with the Paradigm agency. In January 2025, he was named Lacoste’s global brand ambassador and appeared in their underwear campaign. In April 2025, he voiced Johnny Stompanato in the Audible drama The Big Fix: A Jack Bergin Mystery. Perez is passionate about sustainability and supporting the Latin community, and has worked with Australian organizations focused on renewable wool fiber.