Taylor Lautner - Film & Theater Personalities, Timeline and Childhood

Taylor Lautner was born to Deborah and Daniel Lautner in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He and his younger sister, Makena, are raised as Roman Catholics and are a mix of German, French, Dutch and Native American lineage.

He took his first karate class at the age of six and trained under Michael Chaturantabut, the founder of Xtreme Martial Arts. By the age of eight, he became a black belt holder, won several junior martial arts championships and also appeared on the ISKA Karate Event on television in 2003.

He attended public school in Valencia and indulged in a lot of extra-curricular activities like football, baseball and hip-hop dance. It was during this time he moved to Santa Clarita, California and began acting.

After he moved to Los Angeles, he appeared in a number of small television roles and commercials. He then appeared in ‘Shadow Fury’, a television-film, in 2001.

Following the brief success of ‘Shadow Fury’, he was offered a voice-over job for ‘Rugrats Go Wild’ and he appeared on ‘The Bernie Mac Show’, ‘My Wife and Kids’ and ‘Summerland’.

He soon went back to signing voice-over roles for movies like ‘Danny Phantom’, ‘Duck Dodgers’ and ‘What’s New, Scooby Doo?’ At the same time, he broke into modeling and was soon picked by Adam Shankman for the film, ‘Cheaper by the Dozen 2’ as Elliot Murtaugh.

His first breakthrough performance was in the film, ‘The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D’ in 2005. Although the movie received negative reviews from critics, it became an international success and put Lautner in the spotlight.

In 2008, he was cast as Jack Spivey for the short-lived NBC drama, ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ and he also appeared in ‘Love Inc.’ and ‘He’s a Bully, Charlie Brown’.

The same year, filmmakers began searching for a boy, preferably with Native-American descent, for the role of Jacob Black for the first installment of the ‘Twilight’ film series. During his audition, he read lines from the second and the third book with Kristen Stewart, who was already chosen for the role of ‘Isabella Swan’.

He was selected for his ravishingly good looks and passed the screen test for his persona and dialogue delivery skills. The movie became a critical and commercial success.

In an attempt to do justice to the role of the lovelorn wolf-boy, he weight-trained extensively and gained approximated 30 pounds of muscle, which wooed women across the world and earned him the ‘teen idol’ and sex symbol status.

He appeared in the second and third installment of the Twilight series, ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’ and ‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse’, in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

In 2010, he was also cast in ‘Valentine’s Day’ as Willy Harrinton, where he played Taylor Swift’s love interest.

Following the success of the three twilight movies, he appeared in ‘Abduction’, opposite Lily Collins, which did poorly at the box-office, partially due to his poor performance, which was heavily criticized by critics.

He re-appeared in the final installment of the Twilight-saga films, ‘Breaking Dawn Part 1’ and ‘Breaking Dawn Part 2’, which released in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Currently, two of his films ‘Grown Ups 2’ and ‘Tracers’ are in their post-production stages and are slated for release in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

He is best-known for his role as ‘Jacob Black’ in the ‘Twilight’ film series, which earned him a permanent spot as a tabloid teen and sex idol along with his co-stars, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. The highest-grossing romantic vampire-werewolf fantasy captured the hearts of millions around the globe and continues to be one of the ‘most-watched’ films in the romantic genre of films.

He won the ‘Teen Choice Awards’ for ‘Best Breakthrough Performance-Male’ for ‘Twilight’ in 2009.

He was ranked ‘The 50 Sexiest Men of 2010’ by Glamour Magazine in 2010.

He was ranked fourth on People’s magazine list of ‘Most Amazing Bodies’.

He won the ‘People’s Choice Awards’ for ‘Favorite On-screen Team’ with Robert Pattinson and Kristen Steward for ‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse’ in 2011.

He was awarded the MTV Movie Award for ‘Best Shirtless Performance’ for ‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2’ in 2013.

He was romantically involved with actor-singers, Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez.

According to the popular magazine, ‘Men’s Health’, Lautner follows a strict diet and continues to train in martial arts during his spare time. He currently resides with his parents and sister in California.

During a promotional interview for ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’, this Hollywood actor had to be restricted to the hotel room as around 2000 girls had stormed the hotel lobby to catch a glimpse of him.

This ‘Twilight’ actor does not mind being called by the name of the character he has played in the movie.