Taylor Lautner

Lautner was born on February 11, 1992, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Deborah and Daniel Lautner. His mother works for a software development company, while his father was a Midwest Airlines pilot. He has one younger sister named Makena. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Lautner has Dutch, French, and German ancestry, and has stated that he has "distant" Native American ancestry (specifically Odawa and Potawatomi, both Anishinaabe peoples) through his mother. He grew up in Hudsonville, Michigan, a town near Grand Rapids. He has stated that he was bullied in school because he was an actor. He commented, "I just had to tell myself 'I can't let this get to me. This is what I love to do. And I'm going to continue doing it.'"

He took his first karate class at the age of six. A year later, he attended the national karate tournament in Louisville, Kentucky, where he met Michael Chaturantabut, the founder of Xtreme Martial Arts. Chaturantabut invited Lautner to a camp he held at University of California, Los Angeles. Lautner trained with Chaturantabut for several years, earning his black belt by the age of eight, and winning several junior world championships. He appeared in an ISKA karate event televised on ESPN in 2003 that was later lampooned on the sports-comedy show Cheap Seats that first aired in 2006.

In junior high, Lautner—who was involved in karate, baseball and hip-hop dance—won the award for "Best Smile" and played in the school's Turkey Bowl American Football game. He went to public school at Valencia High School in Santa Clarita, California until his sophomore year. Chaturantabut, who once portrayed the Blue Ranger in Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, suggested to Lautner that he take up acting. For a few years, the Lautners flew from Michigan to Los Angeles for auditions when his talent agency called, and returned to Grand Rapids for school sometimes the same day. Lautner balanced karate and acting with being on the football and baseball teams at his school, and taking up jazz and hip-hop dance. After that became tiring, Lautner and his family decided to move to California for a month, to try it out, before moving to Santa Clarita, California, in 2002.