Taylor Zakhar Perez reveals he was once fired from a project — and it was a good thing

Taylor Zakhar Perez won over audiences with his charismatic performance in Red, White & Royal Blue — but one director wasn't as enamored with his talents.

At EW's Breaking Big panel at SCAD Savannah Film Festival, the actor reveals he once got fired from a project...though it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. "It was some streaming or social media thing, but it was scripted. And I did the day, and I got fired," the actor explains in the video above. "It was just… a director who had come from music videos, he was not good with direction, and I just was like, 'Oh, okay, they told me they're going a different direction, that's okay.'"

But Perez had a rude awakening when he finally saw a promo for the project. "Three months later, I'm watching something on YouTube, and the trailer comes out for said project, and it's the same scene that I did, just with a different person," he recalls. "In that moment, my stomach dropped, like 'Oh, my gosh, this is terrible, I was fired — they weren't going a different direction, they wanted a different human actor altogether. I didn't cut it.'"

However, Perez might have dodged a bullet by losing the gig. "I went to dinner with a friend, and the guy that was in that project showed up, and I said, 'Hey, you took my role in that project.' I wasn't mad, I was just like 'How was it?'" he says. "And he goes 'Dude, you are so lucky you got fired, because that director made me cry the entire time I was on set.' And in that moment, I was like 'I'm so sorry.' But also, I'm so grateful!"

"The universe works in mysterious ways, and I've been lucky enough to find projects where you just have incredibly happy people on a set or very wonderful people that you're working with," continues Perez, who also spent some of his time at the Savannah festival touring the new state-of-the-art backlot at SCAD, which also opened a second casting office this fall. "I think that sometimes when a project passes you by, another one is about to pop up."

You can watch EW's full Breaking Big panel at SCAD — also featuring Maddie Ziegler, Chloe Coleman, and Aria Mia Loberti — in the video below.

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