Taylor Lautner was born on 11 February 1992 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is of mixed German, French, Dutch and Native American heritage.
His father, Daniel, is an airline pilot and his mother, Deborah, works for a software company. He has a younger sister, Makena, born in 1996.
From a young age, Lautner was interested in martial arts. He started to do karate at the age of 6. After having won several local competitions, he competed at national level and was ranked first in the “Junior” category.
During a competition he met Mike Chat, seven times World Karate Champion. He became Lautner’s trainer. At only 8 years old, Taylor represented the USA in the “Under 12s category” for the World Karate Association and won three gold medals.
It was at the age of 9 that Lautner had his first experience of the world of acting. His martial arts teacher advised him to go to a c-asting for an advert for the fast food restaurant, Burger King.
That is when Lautner realised his wanted to become an actor. Based on this the whole family moved to Los Angeles so he could realise his dream.
At the age of 12, he made his television debut in “Shadow Fury” (2001). He then landed small parts in the shows “The Bernie Mac Show”, “Summerland” and “My Wife and Kids”. In the same year (2004), he also made an appearance in Jessica Simpson’s show “The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour”.
In 2005 he did the voiceover for several cartoons, including “What’s New, Scooby-Do?”, “Duck Dodgers” and “Danny Phantom”.
Lautner landed his first film role in 2005 as “Sharkboy” in Robert Rogriquez’s “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D”. In the same year he starred alongside Steven Martin in the comedy “Cheaper by the Dozen 2”.
In 2006 he starred in the TV series “Love, Inc” and in 2008 “My Own Worst Enemy”.
2008 was also the year that marked the running point in Taylor Lautner’s career. This was the year he was chosen to play the role of the werewolf “Jacob Black” in the phenomenally successful teenage film “Twilight”.
After the film’s release there were rumours that the production team were looking to replace Lautner for a more muscular actor. Determined to keep his role and supported by his fans, Taylor went on a special diet, trained really hard and in the space of only a few months had gained 13 kilos of muscle.
Upon seeing the drastic change in his physique, the production team were so impressed by this, they decided to keep him in the role. Lautner has become, along with the very popular Robert Pattinson (who plays the vampire “Edward Cullen”) one of the major keys to success of the Twilight saga films, with fans split between the “Jacob camp” and “Edward camp”.
Lautner went on to star as “Jacob Black” in “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” (2009), “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” (2010) and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1” (2011). Part 2 is due to be released later this year.
As well as starring in the Twilight Sagas, Lautner has also found time to star in some rather different films. In 2010, he starred alongside some of the biggest names in Hollywood in the romantic comedy “Valentine’s Day”. It was also rumoured that he was dating his co-star, singer Taylor Swift at the time.
In 2011 he starred in the action film “Abduction”.
As far as his relationships go, he has been linked to singer Taylor Swift, actress Selena Gomez and his “Abduction” co-star Lily Collins. There are rumours he could be dating an old girlfriend from school again. What we can be sure of is that he will never be short of admirers!
