Internet, meet your new boyfriend: Taylor Zakhar Perez, the hunky star of Netflix’s “The Kissing Booth 2.”
Perez stars in the followup to Netflix’s 2018 teen romance hit, which launched breakout actors Joey King and Jacob Elordi into the stratosphere. Now, the hotly anticipated sequel, which hits Netflix on Friday, introduces a new obsession in the form of Marco, played by Perez.
The new character promises to shake things up. The first movie saw Elle (King, who went on to score an Emmy nod for Hulu’s “The Act”) and Noah (Elordi, who starred in HBO’s provocative “Euphoria”) ultimately end up together, even with the complication that Noah is the older brother of Elle’s BFF Lee (Joel Courtney).
The second movie follows the couple as Noah goes off to college (Harvard, natch). Elle is still in high school, and soon gets close to new kid Marco, described as “a snack” and “seriously luscious” in the trailer.
That’s right, much like John Ambrose McClaren (Jordan Fisher) in “To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You,” Marco is here to stir up the central couple and be a rival to Noah. So who’s the man behind the new dreamboat?
Perez is an up-and-coming actor, with “The Kissing Both 2” poised to be his biggest role yet. A Chicago native and an avid swimmer, he’s had a slew of one-off guest appearances in popular shows such as “Scandal,” “iCarly,” “Code Black” and “Awkward.”
His Instagram (which has 69,012 followers and counting before the movie’s release) is full of interests such as sailing, riding motorcycles, hiking and his trusty dog, Jack. He also highlights social issues, including posts promoting a charity to provide masks to first responders working to combat COVID-19 and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.
Is he single? Hard to say. He might be dating actress Maisie Richardson-Sellers — a fellow newcomer to the “Kissing Booth” universe in the second movie — as he posted a cozy-looking photo of with her on Feb. 1 and captioned it, “My Cherie Amour.”
Will he blow up and become the internet’s new boyfriend, the way Noah Centineo did in summer of 2018 when the first “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” became a worldwide sensation? Time — and “The Kissing Booth 2” — will tell.
