The Actor Who Plays Mayans MC's EZ Had a Role in One of Your Favorite Teen Movies

If you grew up slightly obsessed with A Cinderella Story — and, be honest, who didn't? — you most definitely came across Pardo in one of his earliest roles. He played Ryan, one of Austin's (Chad Michael Murray) jock friends. After that, Pardo popped up in a slew of other teen-oriented projects during the mid 2000s. He had guest spots on Veronica Mars and The OC and a two-episode arc on the revived 90210 in 2010.

It wasn't all small roles on soapy teen series, though. In 2006, he played the title role in Lifetime's original movie A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, which dramatized the real life and murder of Gwen Araujo, a young transgender woman who was murdered after her trans status was discovered. Continuing in the crime-drama genre, Pardo later had guest roles on not one but two of the CSI shows: CSI: Miami in 2006 and CSI: NY in 2011.

Starting in 2012, Pardo landed the bigger roles you probably know him best for. He was cast as half-vampire Nahuel in Breaking Dawn: Part 2, the finale of the Twilight saga. Later that year, Pardo got his first series-regular role on NBC's postapocalyptic drama Revolution, on which he played Jason, the conflicted son of a militia ruler. The show lasted for two seasons before being canceled in May 2014.

Following Revolution's cancellation, Pardo took on another sci-fi role in The CW's The Messengers, but that too was canceled pretty quickly. That's when he nabbed a leading role as Jesus on Hulu's original series East Los High, which garnered a loyal fan base until its finale in 2017 and made Pardo a recognizable name.

The actor has played his share of conflicted yet sympathetic characters, something his fans from Mayans MC will have no trouble believing.