Kelvin Taylor (actor)


Kelvin Lewis Taylor, is an American-born New Zealand actor based in Auckland. His most notable role was in the documentary "The Golden Hour". The documentary received an International Emmy nomination for the Best Documentary Award at the 41st International Emmy Awards. Taylor appeared on the second week of the first season of Come Dine with Me New Zealand where he came last place.

Early life

Kelvin Lewis Taylor was raised initially in Newport News, Virginia along with a fraternal twin sister, Princess Taylor. His mother, Rhonda Clark, is a playwright. His biological father Kelvin Lewis Pittman was a former narcotics dealer turned user. Due to his father's substance abuse, he was raised in a single-parent home in the Section 8 projects of Stuart Gardens. Taylor's family was one of the millions of African American families displaced by Exclusionary zoning through US city zoning laws. When he was 11, his family relocated to Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Taylor made his stage debut in 1990 at the age of 5, playing the lead role in a kindergarten production of The Gingerbread Man. As a young adult, Taylor had to undergo plastic surgery due to altercation. It was later revealed according to a 2020 article in The New Zealand Herald the attack was racially motivated.

Career

Taylor began modeling at age 19 for the Shmack Clothing x Billionaire Boys Club / BAPE clothing line collaboration. Later he would begin to act in several commercials and then music videos working with people such as JGeek and the Geeks, N.E.R.D, and Pharrell Williams. Humble beginnings, he would find a start as a background actor in Spartacus before showing up on New Zealand's Three.
Taylor went on to make appearances in Ash vs Evil Dead, The Shannara Chronicles and James Patterson's Murder Is Forever. He was cast as Malcolm X in , however the production was cancelled because several characters opted to use archived footage instead. Discrimination for him being American-born has been a obstacle within the film industry in New Zealand. He was also a student of Meisner Technique instructor Michael Saccenté, the acting coach of Karl Urban and Antony Starr.
As of 2008, Kelvin Taylor resides between Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Filmography

Films

Television

Documentary

Music video