The unexpected success of ‘Twilight’ led to the adaptation of numerous youth novels (most of them did not turn out very well) and catapulted its protagonists to fame… at least two of them. What happened to Taylor Lautner?
An American werewolf in Hollywood
Taylor Daniel Lautner born in 1992, in Grand Rapids (Michigan, USA). Contrary to what is commonly thought, his Native American ancestry is actually quite distant and it comes from his mother’s side, which does have roots in the Odawa and Potawatomi tribes.
He discovered his passion for karate at the age of six and met Michael Chaturantabut, the blue Power Ranger, at a championship from the ‘Power Rangers at the speed of light’ series. He became his teacher and trained him for years. It was he precisely who would encourage Lautner to try his hand at acting.
The actor moved with his family to Los Angeles and there he dedicated himself to going from casting to casting. His first role would come to him at the age of 9 in the movie ‘Shadow Fury’, which would be followed by his first foray into dubbing the commercial for ‘The Rugrats: Wild Holidays’.
After brief roles in series such as ‘The Bernie Mac Show’ or ‘My Wife and My Children’, as well as as a voice actor in ‘What’s new, Scooby-Doo?’ either ‘Duck Rogers’Lautner would have his first opportunity in a leading role with ‘The adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D’.
Robert Rodríguez’s tape, in which he was able to put your knowledge of martial arts to usewas his letter of introduction as a budding youth star and he linked it with another Hollywood film for a family audience: ‘Twelve away from home’in which he played one of Steve Martin’s sons.
But it would not be until a couple of years later that he would leave behind his previous image to become a sex-symbol among adolescents: He played Jacob Black in ‘Twilight’, a role he almost lost in ‘New Moon’, where it was revealed that he was a lycanthrope and more physically demanding. lautner he trained hard and gained almost 14 kilos to gain muscle and convince Chris Weitz to let him keep the part.
From 2008 to 2012, its popularity skyrocketed with each new installment in the series. Several publications were released to include him in their lists of the sexiest actors in Hollywood which, understandably, also raised some controversy because until ‘Eclipse’ (the third film) the actor was a minor.
Before concluding his “twilight” years, Lautner participated in some films mainstream as ‘Valentine’s stories’ either ‘No Exit’in which he coincided with faces as recognizable as Julia Roberts, Lily Collins or Taylor Swift (with whom I would end up dating for a while).
However, the end of the film saga based on the novels by Stephenie Meyer it did not bring him the same luck as his two co-stars: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson Since then they have been lavished both in indie cinema and in the most commercial ones and to this day they are still regular faces on the billboard.
After putting an end to the vampire pentalogy (with that scene phoshopped that keeps giving us nightmares), just did a couple more projects: ‘Grown Ups 2’, ‘Tracers’ and ‘Scream Queens’ season 2 are some of the few roles he was able to scratch.
A turn of events that, although common in youthful stars, is still shocking considering that in 2014 he was still in the top 10 of richest young people in the world.
The last we heard from him was the Netflix movie ‘Play at home’ and that in 2022 he married the nurse Taylor Dome (who, indeed, they changed their last name when they got married and are now both called Taylor Lautner). Undoubtedly, not many actors can boast of having ever achieved the success that Lautner achieved in such a short time, although in the end the fuse soon went out.
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