From the moment Taylor Zakhar Perez was cast as Marco Pena in the sequel to The Kissing
Booth, fans have been swooning over the heartthrob.
The beginning of The Kissing Booth 2 finds Elle and Noah working on their long-distance
relationship, but there are a few wrenches in the mix: Chloe is a beautiful Harvard student
who's been spending a little too much time with Noah.
Meanwhile, Marco has just transferred to Elle's high school, and yeah: he's a total dreamboat,
making him the perfect candidate for that year's iteration of the fair Kissing Booth.
You can probably see where this is going.
Now that Marco has successfully danced his way into our hearts, fans want to find out
everything they can about this dreamy superstar.
"What is his name again?"
"Marco!"
"Marco, Marco, Marco!"
But here's the thing: you've probably seen him before.
While The Kissing Booth 2 is certainly his highest profile project to date, Zakhar Perez
has been working steadily in Hollywood since 2012.
Here's a look at why Marco from The Kissing Booth 2 seems so familiar.
Zakhar Perez got his start in the greater Chicago area as a musical theater student.
According to Glamour, he studied musical theater while growing up in northern Indiana with
his seven siblings.
But like most kids, his first performances weren't public — they were for his family.
Zakhar Perez told Glamour,
"When I was growing up, I played piano and my sister played violin.
My parents would make us come into the living room and play together, and we hated it.
It was like when your parents are like, 'Dance for grandma!'
You're like, 'Oh my god.'"
It may come as a surprise to fans that Zakhar Perez was trained on the piano rather than
guitar, which he plays so expertly in The Kissing Booth 2.
It turns out that before making the film, he actually didn't know how to play the guitar
at all.
Luckily, producers had an ace up their sleeve: former Smash Mouth guitarist Greg Camp, who
personally gave Zakhar Perez a crash course in how to shred.
"You just have to let go, feel the music."
Back in 2012, Zakhar Perez landed his first Hollywood gig: a guest appearance on iCarly.
While he was slated for a bigger role, he did appear onscreen for one memorable moment
in the season six episode "iGet Banned."
"Hey Carly look I brought you…"
"Keith!"
That small appearance got his foot in Hollywood's door, paving the way for more opportunities.
Zakhar Perez played a number of small parts over the next several years, making brief
appearances on shows like Suburgatory, Code Black, Young & Hungry, and MTV's Awkward,
where his character was literally just called "Hot Guy."
After putting in some hard work, Zakhar Perez landed a larger role as Mateo De La Vega in
the unaired pilot episode of the 2016 Cruel Intentions television series.
The series was unfortunately not picked up, but Zakhar Perez followed that up with a breakout
role as one of the leads in the ensemble comedy series Embeds on Verizon's mobile streaming
service Go90.
In other words, Zakhar Perez has paid his dues and put in the effort to become the superstar
heartthrob he is today.
Prior to the release of The Kissing Booth 2, Zakhar Perez had about 70,000 Instagram
followers.
The film was released on Friday, July 24, and by the following Monday his Instagram
follower count had skyrocketed to over two million, turning him into a social media superstar
almost overnight.
He now has over 4 million followers and counting.
And he's also become a viral trendsetter on TikTok, where he's skyrocketed to over 2 million
followers, so there's a pretty good chance you may have seen his face cross your feed.
But you may be surprised to learn that all this fame is actually a bit weird for the
young actor, especially the focus on his looks.
The star said in one interview:
"I'm the most awkward guy when it comes to people giving me compliments about the way
I look.
I was born this way!
I had no control over it!"
The good news for fans of Marco is that they won't have long to wait to see him again.
The Kissing Booth 2 actually ends on a cliffhanger.
That's because The Kissing Booth 3 was secretly filmed at the same time, a fact that was made
public shortly after The Kissing Booth 2 debuted.
Now that the cat's out of the bag, we know that the third film will be arriving on the
streaming platform in 2021 — and we also know that Zakhar Perez will be back as Marco,
and in a major way.
Zakhar Perez told Variety that keeping The Kissing Booth 3 a secret was one of the hardest
things he's ever done.
"This was my first time really doing press for a film and I'm a very straight-up, authentic
kind of guy.
So when it comes to lying, straight-up lying, not even working around it, I was like, 'Oh,
my God, how do we do this?'
And we're sworn to secrecy with netflix, and I straight up just really had to lie."
Now, though, the truth is out, and the world has found out how great Zakhar Perez is.
Now fans can't wait to see what he does next.
Thanks for watching.
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