Taz Skylar isn’t here to hit the beats

Taz Skylar’s path into the industry was by no means usual. There was no drama school pipeline, no stage parents. In fact, he never planned on being an actor at all. There was just an unfulfilling factory job, a suitcase and a gut feeling that the life he had wasn’t going to be enough. At twenty- nine, Skylar moves with intention. Actor, director, writer— every role is a decision. Every decision? Deliberate. He started in London’s Bernie Grant Arts Centre staging self- written plays and went on to secure the part of Billy in the critically acclaimed drama Boiling Point. In 2023, he took on the role of beloved cook Sanji in Netflix’s live-action reimagining of the cult Manga series, One Piece.

It’s a career that is only on the rise. But Skylar isn’t interested in momentum for momentum’s sake — he’s interested in control. Whether building a fight scene from scratch or diving deep into the psyche of a character, the intention to keep learning, to keep building and to keep pushing is the same. “I’d rather die on my own sword than live by someone else’s,” he says decisively, calling in from his apartment in Tenerife. It sounds like a line. But this mantra is anything but performative — if Skylar’s most recent role as rash eco-terrorist Noah in Martin Campbell’s new thriller, Cleaner, is anything to go by. He’s done the fight training. The window cleaning. The Nietzsche. It’s not the performance he’s chasing, though. It’s the purpose. “I don’t want to be in something that just hits the beats,” he says. “It has to matter.”

It’s a sentiment that was informed by his childhood — this vested interest in how humans exist and exist together. In the space between scenes and scripts, Skylar is crafting something real — something that cuts deeper than ambition. He’s wary of fame, suspicious of comfort and driven by the need to make things that feel lived in. It’s within a brief moment of calm for Skylar, between shooting and flying out on location, where our conversation begins.

Daisy Packwood: So, how did you become interested in the film industry?

Taz Skylar: When I was growing up my family were big into radio. Rather than listening to music, it would be conversation and dialogue we were listening to. So when I started reading and watching plays, they really reminded me of the things my mum likes. I also loved their ability to use vocabulary in such an interesting way – plays are just about what somebody or a group of people are able to say to each other.

DP: I guess they let you really craft a narrative.

TS: When you’re reading a play, even just at home, you’re partaking in the acting of it. The focus on dialogue means there’s a freedom to imagine the setting and the staging. Even just as a reader, you get to be the whole creative team.

DP: So you started reading plays?

TS: Yeah, and then I moved to London when I was eighteen and started writing them. I remember thinking, why have I done this? At home I had a nice apartment and a car, and suddenly I was in rainy London, living in a box room in a house-share with seven other people. Eventually, though, I got some funding from the Arts Council and my career really developed from there.

This excerpt was taken from HUNGER Issue 35: F**k it. Stay tuned for the full story.