Robin Lord Taylor Biography

Robin Lord Taylor (born June 4, 1978) is an American film and television actor and director, known for Accepted (2006), Another Earth (2011), Would You Rather (2012) and John Wick 3: Parabellum (2019). He stars in the television drama series Gotham as Oswald Cobblepot, and starred in The Walking Dead as Sam. He has an upcoming role as Will in the Netflix thriller series You.

Early life

Taylor was born in Shueyville, Iowa to Robert Harmon Taylor and Mary Susan (ne Stamy) Taylor. He attended Solon High School and Northwestern University, earning his Bachelor of Science degree in theatre in 2000. While at Northwestern, his roommate was actor Billy Eichner.

Career

Taylor has appeared in several television series, such as The Walking Dead, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Good Wife and Person of Interest. He had a recurring role as "Darrell, the Late Show page with the fake British accent" on Late Show with David Letterman. He played Abernathy Darwin Dunlap in Accepted. He appeared in such independent films as Would You Rather, Cold Comes the Night, and Another Earth, the last of which won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Taylor was featured in Spike Lee's segment "Jesus Children of America" of the 2005 anthology film on the theme of childhood and exploitation All the Invisible Children (Venice Film Festival), The House is Burning (produced by Wim Wenders (Cannes Film Festival), Pitch (Cannes Film Festival), Kevin Connolly's The Gardener of Eden (Tribeca Film Festival) and Assassination of a High School President (Sundance Film Festival).

Taylor co-created and co-starred in Creation Nation: A Live Talk Show with Billy Eichner, which they performed at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as at the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival and throughout New York City and Los Angeles. He has also appeared onstage in Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, The Shooting Stage, Henry IV and No. 11 Blue and White, as well as numerous productions in Stephen Sondheim's Young Playwrights Festival at the Cherry Lane Theater.

In February 2019, it was announced that Taylor had been cast in the recurring role of Will on the second season of the Netflix thriller series You.

Gotham

Taylor was cast as Oswald Cobblepot in February 2014. His performance as Cobblepot has been described by Esquire as a "standout performance of the first episode [...], disarming and multilayered", by The Wall Street Journal as "a passionate performance ... [that] steals the show", and as "spectacularly cast as the Penguin".

Personal life

Taylor was raised Presbyterian. Since 2000, he has lived in Manhattan, New York, where Gotham is filmed.

In a November 2014 Glamour interview, Taylor was asked, "I notice you are wearing a wedding ring on your ring finger. Are you married?" To which he responded, "I am married! I like to keep it private, but I've been married for over three years, and we've been together for 10 years. No kids. No kids yet!"

In March 2015, Slate noted Taylor in an article discussing "Several actors who are openly gay or who have been cast in multiple gay or bisexual roles and the typecasting of gay roles". Taylor, himself, added: "I feel like the landscape has totally changed. Regardless of sexual preference, it's more that as a character actor, the less I reveal about myself, the better. My favorite actors are the ones I know least about." In April 2015, Taylor openly identified as gay on episode 672 of the Nerdist podcast with Chris Hardwick.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2005	Jesus Children of America	Mike
2006	Pitch	Pete
	The House is Burning	Phil	credited as Robin Taylor
	Accepted	Abernathy Darwin Dunlap
2008	Assassination of a High School President	Alex Schneider	credited as Robin Taylor
	August	Guy Employee
2009	Last Day of Summer	Jason	credited as Robin Taylor
2010	Step Up 3D	Punk Kid
2011	Return	Vonnie	credited as Robin Taylor
	Another Earth	Jeff Williams
	The Melancholy Fantastic	Dukken	credited as *Robin Taylor'
2012	Would You Rather	Julian
2013	Cold Comes the Night	Quincy
2016	Full Dress	Noah
2017	The Long Home	Lipscomb	Filming
2019	John Wick 3	The Administrator

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2005	Law & Order	Jared Weston
2008	Life on Mars	Jimmy	Episode: "My Maharishi Is Bigger Than Your Maharishi" (S 1:Ep 3)
	Law & Order	Dale
2010	Law & Order	Cedric Stuber	Episode: "Innocence" (S 20:Ep 16)
2012	Person of Interest	Ajax	Episode: "Blue Code" (S 1:Ep 15)
	The Good Wife	Brock Dalyndro	Episode: "Battle of the Proxies" (S 4:Ep 10)
2013	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Dylan Fuller	Episode: "Traumatic Wound" (S 14:Ep 21)
	The Walking Dead	Sam	* Episode: "Indifference" (S 4:Ep 4) Episode: "No Sanctuary" (S 5:Ep 1)
2014	Taxi Brooklyn	Sami	Episode: "Precious Cargo" (S 1:Ep4)
2014-present	Gotham	Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin	Series regular
2019	You	Will	Recurring role (season 2)

Video game

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2016	Dishonored 2	The Outsider	Replacing Billy Lush
2017	Dishonored: Death of the Outsider	The Outsider