The One Piece live-action was premiered on August 31 on Netflix, meeting huge success and critical acclaim from fans in the process. Much to the surprise of anime and manga fans, who have constantly seen a history of failure when it comes to adapting these works, the series were able to find a sweet spot in the hearts of people and have even made non-fans start picking up the manga or the anime series after watching the Netflix adaptation.
This time, though, we will be telling you about one of the actors who play a very important character in the One Piece series. It’s of course no other than Taz Skylar, who was cast as Sanji in the Netflix adaptation and now is sharing the spotlight with the other 4 members of the Straw Hat Pirates crew.
Taz Skylar (Tarek Yassin Skylar) was born in 1995 in Canary Islands, Spain. The 27-year-old is of Arab and Sierraleonian-Lebanese descent on his dad’s side, and of English descent on his mom’s side. The actor grew up in Spain, so he is able to speak both Spanish and English fluently, and even dubbed his own character in the European Spanish version of the One Piece live action.
After trying to enlist in the British Army, and failing to do so, the Taz decided to begin his career in acting. He mostly appeared in short films or small productions, such as The Venom musical, Trophy (2016) or Agatha Raisin in 2022. However, he got his first major role in Netflix’s One Piece live-action in 2021. Back then, the Spanish-English actor was confirmed to play Sanji in the show, but we would not see him until 2023, as COVID-19 restrictions put a stop to the development of the series.
Unlike his other cast members, there is not much information regarding his casting process or whether he had interacted with Eiichiro Oda when getting his role. Still, Taz has mentioned that he does share some similarities with Sanji, as stated in a recent interview with Pankhuri Bhutani:
“I am very particular about things, about whatever it is that I’m focusing on, I don’t like when people get in my way. I definitely fall in love easily! Or like, often, I definitely share that with him.”
This Netflix series were for sure a huge hit, and it has remained on the number one spot for viewers for some time now. Given the fact that One Piece has been a total smash, the second season has been reportedly finished his writing process, so there will be news about the show and about Taz very soon!
