Netflix's One Piece: Who Plays Sanji?

Hold onto your straw hats! Netflix has another live-action anime adaptation on the way.

After giving audiences updated versions of "Death Note" and "Cowboy Bebop," Netflix is embarking on its most ambitious adaptation to date — "One Piece." Originating as a manga, the TV series has been going strong since 1999, producing over 1,000 episodes at this point as Luffy and his companions search the world for the legendary One Piece so that he can become the next Pirate King. 

It'll be interesting to see how Netflix manages to adapt this epic saga, but if nothing else, it provides a chance for actors to embody characters many people have spent years following and put their own spin on them. The first "One Piece" trailer offered a good look at how the cast will fare, and Netflix has opted for performers still early in their careers. That doesn't mean there's no talent here, especially considering Taz Skylar plays Sanji, a womanizing master chef who wants to obtain the All Blue with the power to connect the Four Seas. Skylar earned acclaim as an actor, writer, and producer, earning an Olivier Award nomination for his play, "Warheads," which he wrote and starred in. But his experience in live theater is just the beginning, as he also has plenty of film and television credits to his name.

Netflix's "One Piece" is definitely Taz Skylar's most high-profile project to date. Hopefully, it launches his career into the stratosphere, but he already has plenty of credits. He got his start in various short films, including "Multi-Facial." In addition to playing Mike in that movie, he was also the writer and producer, and that film ultimately went on to win best motion picture at the 2018 IndieFlicks Short Film Festival.

Feature-length films and TV series soon followed, including appearing in a couple of episodes of the British comedy-drama show "Agatha Raisin." 2022 was a fruitful year for the multi-hyphenate talent, as he also showed up in two episodes of "The Lazarus Project," playing Walt.

Skylar clearly takes the art of acting very seriously, and playing Sanji in "One Piece" presented an entirely new challenge. He told Nuit Magazine how he was able to relate to this new character, "[Sanji's] trauma and his reasons for leaving are the thing that drives his behaviour in adulthood... I have my own things I was running away from and which drive my own behaviour now... But we won't go into those, that's a whole other story." "One Piece" isn't the only project Skylar has on deck. He'll also soon appear in the TV series "Boiling Point" as well as the movie "Gassed Up." As for his foray into live-action anime, fans can see him as Sanji when "One Piece" Season 1 debuts on Netflix on August 31.