Most actors who play high school characters never actually had a high school story worth telling. Jan Luis Castellanos did — he just won a state wrestling title before anyone handed him a script.

That detail matters more than it might seem. It's the thread that connects a kid raised by his grandparents in Santo Domingo to a guy who showed up in Los Angeles with $50 in his pocket and, within a few years, was sharing scenes with Don Cheadle, Joey King, and the cast of one of Netflix's most talked-about teen dramas. This is the fuller version of his story — the one that goes past the usual one-line "known for 13 Reasons Why" summary.

Who Is Jan Luis Castellanos?

Jan Luis Castellanos is a Dominican-American actor and producer best known for playing Diego Torres in the fourth season of Netflix's 13 Reasons Why, Topher Vasquez in Marvel's Runaways, and Croy in the 2024 Netflix film Uglies. His full name, as credited in every film and television role he's taken, is Jan Luis Castellanos — there's no separate legal or stage name on record.

He was born on September 11, 1995, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, which makes him 30 as of 2026. Before acting, he was a competitive wrestler and a model, and that combination of athletic discipline and physical presence shows up in nearly every role he's landed since.

Early Life: A Childhood Split Between Two Countries

Castellanos spent his earliest years in the Dominican Republic, raised by his grandparents while his mother, Sugey Quinones, built a life in the United States. At age eight, he made the move to Secaucus, New Jersey, to live with his stepfather and his younger siblings. He's the oldest of four.

That kind of transition — new country, new language environment, new school — tends to either close a kid off or push him toward something he can throw himself into. For Castellanos, it was sports and theater, often at the same time.

High School: State Champion Wrestler and Theater Kid

At Secaucus High School, Castellanos became a New Jersey state champion wrestler, a credential that's almost comically absent from most surface-level write-ups about him. He wasn't a part-time athlete dabbling in drama club. He competed seriously in wrestling while also performing in school musicals, including West Side Story and Jersey Boys.

That dual track — discipline on the mat, expression on stage — is exactly the kind of detail that explains why his characters often carry a coiled, physical intensity. Diego Torres, Croy, and even Tommy Torres in Tall Girl 2 — they all read as guys who could handle themselves in a fight before they say a single line.

College, Medicine, and the Pull Back to Acting

After high school, Castellanos enrolled at Saint Peter's University in Jersey City with medicine on his mind, not Hollywood. Plenty of actors have a version of this story — the practical degree path that gets interrupted by something they can't shake. For him, that something was acting, and it pulled hard enough that he eventually walked away from the pre-med track entirely.

The Bridge Most Profiles Skip: Modeling Before Acting

Here's the part of his story that gets glossed over almost everywhere: Castellanos didn't move straight from a college dorm into a casting office. He built a modeling career first, working campaigns for brands including Adidas and Abercrombie & Fitch.

Modeling gave him two things acting school alone couldn't: income to survive on while he found his footing, and physical exposure to the industry before he had a single acting credit. It's also what got him to Los Angeles in the first place. Once there, he enrolled at the New Collective acting studio, founded by Susan Batson — the same coach known for working with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

The move wasn't glamorous at first. In an interview reflecting on his early days in LA, Castellanos has described arriving with almost nothing and, at one low point, sleeping outside on Sunset Boulevard before things turned around. That's the kind of detail that doesn't show up in a Wikipedia infobox, but it explains a lot about how he approaches the work now.

Acting Career: Every Major Role, Explained

Marvel's Runaways: His First Real Acting Role

Castellanos's first significant on-camera role came in 2018, when he joined the cast of Hulu's Marvel's Runaways as Topher Vasquez, a street kid with super strength who briefly crosses paths with the show's core group. It wasn't a lead part, but it was his entry point into scripted television, and it put him on Marvel's radar at a moment when the MCU's TV side was expanding fast. Runaways was part of a wider push to build out Marvel Television's slate on Hulu, the same wave that gave actress Sydney Lemmon her lead role in Marvel's Helstrom around the same period.

Don't Look Deeper

Around the same period, he appeared in the Quibi series Don't Look Deeper, playing a character named Levi alongside Don Cheadle and Emily Mortimer. Quibi didn't last long as a platform, but the project mattered for Castellanos — it meant sharing scenes with established actors early in his career.

Diego Torres in 13 Reasons Why

In February 2020, Castellanos joined 13 Reasons Why as a series regular for its fourth and final season, playing Diego Torres — the football team's leader, fiercely loyal to his friends and quick to let that loyalty turn into aggression. Diego becomes entangled in the season's central mystery through his friendship with Monty and his complicated relationship with Jessica Davis.

What makes Diego interesting, and what Castellanos has spoken about directly, is how personal the role felt to him. The character let him bring some Spanish dialogue into his scenes, which he's described as a meaningful link to his own background. It's a small detail, but it's the kind of authenticity that separates a role an actor is just passing through from one that actually shapes them. So, to directly answer a question a lot of fans search for: Jan Luis Castellanos played Diego in 13 Reasons Why, and it remains the role that introduced him to the widest audience.

Tall Girl 2: His Film Debut

Castellanos made his feature film debut in Netflix's Tall Girl 2 (2022), playing Tommy Torres, a confident new student who becomes Jodi Kreyman's co-star in a school musical and, briefly, a romantic complication in her relationship. It's a lighter role than Diego, but it showed range — comedic timing instead of psychological intensity.

Bridge and Tunnel and Influencia

He also appeared as Mikey Diaz in Ed Burns's Bridge and Tunnel, a 1980s-set comedy-drama that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Separately, he stepped behind the camera as an executive producer on the short film Influencia, where he also starred as Cesar, a grieving influencer. That performance earned him Best Actor in a Drama at the 2022 Official Latino Film and Arts Festival — a credit that signals he's building a producing career alongside his acting one.

Uglies: Playing Croy

In 2024, Castellanos took on his highest-profile film role yet in Netflix's Uglies, based on Scott Westerfield's novel. He plays Croy, a guarded leader within a rebel faction called the Smoke, opposite Joey King's Tally. In interviews around the release, Castellanos described leaning into Croy's protectiveness and distrust, and finding the character soften as the story progresses — a more layered performance than most YA adaptations ask for. Breaking through on a single franchise adaptation is its own kind of test, one that other actors building name recognition through genre properties — Robert Aramayo's run on The Rings of Power is a comparable example — have had to navigate in their own way.

What's Next for Jan Luis Castellanos

Castellanos has several projects lined up that are worth watching:

  • Get Lost — a modern reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, where he plays Ryan, a love-interest-turned-ex, alongside Ella Bleu Travolta.
  • Saint Clare — released in 2025, with Castellanos as Truman, a mysterious college student, starring opposite Bella Thorne.
  • Black Spines — a coming-of-age thriller where he both stars as Cameron and serves as executive producer.

That producing credit keeps showing up, which suggests his ambitions extend past acting roles he's been handed — he's actively shaping projects, not just auditioning for them. It's a similar arc to other actors who've used one high-profile streaming role to expand their range, the way Anna Sawai's breakout in Shōgun opened doors well beyond the project that made her name.

Background, Height, and the Questions Fans Actually Ask

Where is Jan Luis Castellanos from? Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He's of Dominican ethnicity and holds Dominican-American nationality, having grown up between the island and New Jersey.

How tall is Jan Luis Castellanos? This is one area where the internet genuinely disagrees with itself. Different trackers list him anywhere from 5'7" to nearly 6 feet, and no official source — including his own representation — has confirmed an exact figure. Treat any single number you see online as an estimate, not a fact.

Does Jan Luis Castellanos have a wife or partner? No marriage has been reported, and he hasn't publicly confirmed a partner's identity. A handful of entertainment blogs have claimed he's in a long-term relationship, but they don't agree with each other on a name, which is usually a sign the detail hasn't actually been confirmed by him. He keeps that part of his life private and focuses his public presence on his work.

Is there a Jan Luis Castellanos Wikipedia page? Not a standalone one, at least not yet. He does appear as a credited cast member on the Wikipedia pages for Runaways, 13 Reasons Why, Tall Girl 2, Uglies, and Saint Clare — so the information is out there, just spread across the shows and films rather than collected in one place.

What about Instagram? He posts under @janluiscastellanos, where his bio reads "Actor | Producer | Investor," with a nod to his Dominican heritage. It's the most direct, unfiltered source for what he's working on next.

The Bottom Line

Jan Luis Castellanos isn't a story about an overnight discovery. It's a story about a kid who wrestled in New Jersey, modeled to pay rent in Los Angeles, and slowly built his way into roles that now include a Marvel series, a Netflix sci-fi franchise, and a teen drama that millions of people watched obsessively. The roles keep getting bigger, and with two producing credits already on his résumé, he's clearly not waiting around for someone else to hand him the next one.

If you've been following him since Runaways or just met him through Uglies, the throughline is the same: he picks roles with some edge to them, and he seems to be just getting started.

FAQ

What is Jan Luis Castellanos known for?

He's best known for playing Diego Torres in the final season of 13 Reasons Why, Topher in Marvel's Runaways, and Croy in Netflix's Uglies.

What was Jan Luis Castellanos' first role?

His first significant acting credit was as Topher Vasquez in Hulu's Marvel's Runaways, which he joined in 2018 after working in commercials and modeling.

Who played Diego in 13 Reasons Why?

Jan Luis Castellanos played Diego Torres, joining the show as a series regular for its fourth and final season in 2020.

What is Jan Luis Castellanos' full name?

Jan Luis Castellanos is his full given and professional name. No alternate legal name appears in any official or industry record.

What movies and TV shows has Jan Luis Castellanos been in?

His credits include Marvel's Runaways, Don't Look Deeper, 13 Reasons Why, Tall Girl 2, Bridge and Tunnel, Uglies, and the upcoming Get Lost, Saint Clare, and Black Spines.

Is Jan Luis Castellanos Dominican?

Yes. He was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and identifies as Dominican-American.