Tarek Yassin Skylar (born 5 December 1995), known professionally as Taz Skylar, is a British and Spanish actor and screenwriter. After the success of his self written off-West-end play, Warheads, he went on to write and star in Gassed Up for Amazon Prime, subsequently playing Sanji in the Netflix series One Piece (2023).
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Early and personal life
Skylar was born in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain to a Lebanese father and an English mother. His father was born in Sierra Leone, and his mother came from Yorkshire. Skylar, who is fluent in Spanish, grew up in Tenerife. He holds both British and Spanish citizenship and has permanent residence in Spain.
He worked creating surfboards from the age of 15 after leaving high school. He attempted to enlist as a reservist in the British Army in 2016, but after a car accident caused him to suffer a concussion, he failed medical tests. He had to wait a year before he could reapply to join the army, so he began writing and acting.
Career
Skylar began his career in the United Kingdom, where he started acting in various small roles. In 2015, he appeared in the short films Venom and Beautiful. He then played David in the short film Trophy (2016) before appearing as Caps in The Reserves from 2018 to 2019, which he also wrote and produced.
Skylar co-wrote Warheads with Ross Berkeley Simpson, inspired by the experiences of his best friend, a Spanish infantryman who suffered from PTSD after military service. Skylar also starred as the lead character Miles. The play ran at Park Theatre and was nominated for an Olivier Award in 2020.
In 2018, Skylar made his directorial debut with the short film Multi-Facial. The following year, he made his feature film debut in The Kill Team, where he played Sergeant Dawes. That year, he played Marty in Lie Low and Betim in the short film Final Gift. In 2020, he played Jason in Villain. In 2022, he joined the cast of Agatha Raisin, playing Harry Beam in two episodes of the series. Next, the actor played Gin in The Deal (2022) and appeared as Walt in an episode of The Lazarus Project (2022).
In 2021, Skylar joined the cast of One Piece and portrayed Sanji. For the role, he trained extensively in martial arts in order to perform most of his own stunts. The series released its first season in 2023, its second in 2026, and has been renewed for a third, which is currently in production.