Red White & Royal Blue Star Taylor Zakhar Perez Reveals His Ultimate 'Chill' and 'Ordinary' Date Night (Exclusive)

Taylor Zakhar Perez is a homebody at heart.

“I firmly believe that to have an extraordinary career, you have to have an ordinary life,” says the Red White & Royal Blue actor, who is featured in the 2024 PEOPLE Sexiest Man Alive issue, on newsstands Friday.  

His preferred kind of date night? “I'm so chill with cooking at home, putting cell phones away, walking, probably a dog is in the mix, and being outside,” says the chiseled star, 32. 

“There's just always so much noise in everything we do, whether it's a beeping on our phone or an email going out on our computer or Spotify playing in the background. I think it's just [about] connection," he says.

The Indiana-raised star earned supermarket-level fame starring in Red, White & Royal Blue as the charismatic son of a U.S. president (Uma Thurman), based on the 2019 bestselling novel by Casey McQuiston,

As the first son, Perez enters royal life after falling for a dashing British prince named Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) in the hit rom-com.

"The best part of playing Alex is how he's eternally optimistic" says Perez. "But as the actor getting to have this experience playing Alex, it was definitely the locations that we got to shoot at because it really made you feel like a royal, or you're in that world having access to these properties. That really helped you feel like you were in the world."

But back in real life stateside, “the funniest thing is when people call me Alex in a grocery store,” he says with a smile. “I was at Erewhon picking out some pre-packaged food and a girl walks by and goes, 'Alex Claremont-Diaz!' "

Next up is Red, White & Royal Blue 2, which was green-lit in May by distributor Amazon MGM Studios. On his wish list for the sequel, which has yet to start shooting?

“I feel like we’ve solidified the love part, but we haven’t really seen them live together,” he says of Alex and Prince Henry, whose relationship is tested when made public at the end of the first film.

“We saw what they could do individually, but now we can see what they can do together, which is exciting.”

And for the young politico he plays, “I just want to see what Alex's life in politics turns into while not being under his parents' roof and what he's learned from watching his mom.”

Perez — whose favorite cheat meal is pasta ("I make a vodka sauce, [with a] really nice rigatoni noodle and just Parmesan cheese from the farmer's market") and bucket-list trip involves cage-diving with great white sharks — says he’s also felt a notable shift in his career since making the popular film. 

“I just have a better sense of what I want to do next, and I don't really want to do any repeats,” says the actor, who is currently doing vocal training. “Nothing scares me more than learning music that's out of my range.”