Taylor Daniel Lautner (born February 11, 1992) is an American actor, voice actor, model, and martial artist. As a child, Lautner took up martial arts and was ranked number one in his category by the American Sports Karate Association. Lautner soon thereafter began his acting career, appearing in bit roles 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). In 2005, he appeared in the film, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, and starred in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.
Lautner got his big break when he was cast as Jacob Black in the The Twilight Saga film series, beginning with the first film, Twilight (2008). Lautner returned for the following two movies, The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), and is set to appear in the last two films for the series, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. Lautner has been nominated for several awards for his work in the Twilight series, including honors at the MTV Movie Awards,People's Choice Awards, and Scream Awards.
The late 2000s saw Lautner become a teen idol and rise as a sex symbol, after extensively changing his physique to keep the role of Jacob Black in further Twilight installments, and thereafter generating media attention for his good looks. In 2010, he was ranked second onGlamour's "The 50 Sexiest Men of 2010" list, and fourth on People's "Most Amazing Bodies" list, among other honors. As of 2010, Lautner was considered the highest-paid teenage actor in Hollywood.
Lautner was born on February 11, 1992 in Grand Rapids, Michigan to Deborah and Daniel Lautner.His mother works for a software development company, while his father is a Midwest Airlines pilot.He has one younger sister named Makena.Raised as a Roman Catholic,Lautner is of mixed German, French, and Dutch heritage, and has "distant" Native American ancestry (specifically Ottawa andPotawatomi) through his mother. Lautner grew up in Hudsonville, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids.
As a child, he took up his first karate class at Fabiano's Karate the age of six. A year later, he attended his national karate tournament inLouisville, Kentucky, where he met Mike Chat, the founder of extreme martial arts. Chat invited Lautner to a camp he held at University of California, Los Angeles. Lautner trained with Chat for several years, earning his black belt by the age of eight, and winning several junior world championships. By the age of eleven, Lautner was ranked number one in his category by the American Sports Karate Association.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.
Chat, 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. 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 permanently in 2002.n 2007, filmmakers began a search for actors to portray Jacob Black, a Native-American friend of lead character Bella Swan in Twilight, the first film in the The Twilight Saga film series.In January 2008, an open casting call was held in Portland, Oregon. Lautner had not heard of the Twilight series before, but was urged by his agent to audition.At his audition, he read lines with Kristen Stewart, who had already been cast as Bella, and they acted out scenes from The Twilight Saga: New Moon and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.The film was a commercial success, earning $69 million its opening weekend, and has grossed $392 million worldwide. It received mixed reviews from critics, having a "Rotten" rating with a weighted average of 5.5/10.In describing the critical consensus, it stated: "Having lost much of its bite transitioning to the big screen, Twilight will please its devoted fans, but do little for the uninitiated."On Metacritic, which assigns aweighted mean rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, it has an average score of 56 from the 37 reviews.At the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, Lautner was nominated for Male Breakthrough Performance, which was won by co-star Robert Pattinson.As of 2010, Lautner was considered to be the highest-paid teen actor in Hollywood.
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