Jake T. Austin

The Kid Who Didn't Want to Be Just a Disney Face

Jake T. Austin started working before he was old enough to decide whether he wanted to be an actor. By just seven years old, he was already appearing in TV commercials for cereal and toy brands in New York. His real name is Jake Toranzo Austin Szymanski, and he was born on 1994 into a family with Puerto Rican, Argentine and Spanish roots.

In 2005, he voiced Diego in the animated series Go, Diego, Go!. It was his first serious experience in the voice acting industry. The job meant spending hours locked in a sound booth while his classmates played at the park.

That was only the beginning.

Disney Channel signed him in 2007 to play Max Russo in Wizards of Waverly Place. He shared the screen with Selena Gomez for 106 episodes and several made-for-cable TV movies. During that shoot, Austin earned five-figure weekly salaries while trying to finish high school with private tutors on set.

In 2009, he starred in Hotel for Dogs alongside Emma Roberts. The film grossed 117 million dollars at the global box office and confirmed that his commercial appeal went beyond the small screen.

Breaking Out of the Comfort Zone

His step toward interpretive maturity came in 2013 with the series The Fosters. He played Jesus Adams Foster in a family drama produced by Jennifer Lopez that tackled complex social issues. But things got complicated after two years of intense shooting.

In 2015, Austin announced that he was voluntarily leaving the series after the second season. The decision puzzled the specialized press, since the character was at a point of major narrative development. Noah Centineo replaced him starting with the third season to fill the gap left by the New York-born actor.

But risk doesn't always translate into new lead roles.

His departure from the series coincided with a period of lower media visibility, when he chose his projects in a more unpredictable way. He was looking for roles that moved away from the obedient teen image the industry had assigned him since childhood. Typecasting is a hard cage to break out of in Hollywood.

Voice Work and Low-Key Returns

The actor returned to big-budget film in 2017, voicing the character Alex in The Emoji Movie. Although professional critics tore apart the storytelling, the film performed as a massive commercial hit in theaters worldwide.

In 2020, he took part in the independent thriller Adverse alongside Mickey Rourke. It was a supporting role, but it let him explore a far darker and more violent range than his earlier work at the Disney factory. The shift in style was obvious to the few who followed his career on the genre film circuit.

His participation in season 23 of Dancing with the Stars in 2016 turned out to be a logistical stumble. He was the first eliminated from the competition after only two weeks of rehearsals and a mediocre score from the technical judges.

The actor owns a property in the San Fernando Valley, bought for 2 million dollars in 2014.