• Kaylee Bryant is an actress best-known for her roles in Disney channel projects and "The Vampire Diaries" spinoff, "Legacies", playing Josie Saltzman
• She is of Japan ancestry, with parents Kristina and Garrett Kaneshiro
• She has experience in modelling and acting, and plays instruments such as the ukulele and guitar
• She supports the LGBT community and other social initiatives, like climate change
• Her net worth is estimated to be around $700,000 and she can earn up to $12,000 per episode
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Kaylee Bryant is an actress, best-known for her roles in Disney channel projects, as well as for starring in “The Vampire Diaries” spin-off “Legacies”, as she landed the role of Josie Saltzman in the series.
Early life, educational background and family
Kaylee Kaneshiro was born on 1 November 1997, in Orange County, California USA, so holds American nationality, but comes from a family of Japan ancestry. Her parents are Kristina and Garrett Kaneshiro, who have always supported their daughter’s career, encouraging her to participate in modelling and acting castings from an early age. Kaylee has an older brother named Kane Kaneshiro. Kaylee started her career as a child print model for Ralph Lauren, so had to skip some of her lessons in order to attend the photoshoots.
When she turned 12 she became home-schooled, and studied successfully during the gaps between her working hours. Kaylee matriculated from her local high school in 2015, didn’t enroll at any college, to fully focus on developing her career.
Since her early years she’s been a good singer and performer, playing the ukulele and guitar. She also took cello classes, as one of her friends gave her his cello and gifted her a free cello lesson – Kaylee instantly fell in love with the instrument, but still posts videos of herself singing and playing ukulele on her Instagram account.
Career
First steps
Starting her career early in the field of modelling, Kaylee is now an experienced model, who’s featured on the covers of such as Avante Magazine, Mood Magazine and Grumpy Online Magazine. She also participated in seven Ralph Lauren printing campaigns before she even turned 13, however, she soon shifted her focus from modelling to acting.
She started attending auditions and castings for minor roles in TV series, and landed her first role in 2006, in the short movie entitled “Condom Nation” in which she played a little girl. It took Kaylee five years to land another role on TV, and she successfully used the opportunity, appearing in an episode of the super-popular thriller series “American Horror Story” in 2011.
After this experience, it was easier for Kaylee to get other roles, and in 2012 she played a musician in “Body of Proof” (2011 – 2013), and then landed her first role in the Disney Channel series “Dog with a Blog”, playing Maddie. In the same year of 2013, she appeared in “A.N.T. Farm” in the role of Tina Garcetti. Among her other roles are Amanda Bergstrom in “Criminal Minds” (2005 – present), Tori in “Kickin’ It” (2011 – 2015) and Sydney in “Chasing Life” (2014 – 2015).
Further success
Starting from 2014 Kaylee had to juggle her projects, having up to five roles a year.
Kaylee played Madison Jordan in “Newsreaders” (2013 – 2015), landed the role of Elizabeth Williams in the short movie “Zugzwang” (2014), and also played Heather in “Party Slashers” (2014). Her performance in “Mary Loss of Soul” in the role of Mary Solis proved her drama skills, so she was invited to act in more serious projects. She later appeared in “Backstrom” (2015) as Amber, played Paula in “Double Daddy” (2015) and landed the role of Lacey in the TV sitcom “The Real O’Neals” (2016 – 2017). In 2016 she had a chance to work with such Hollywood celebrities as Alyssa Milano and Jason Lee, appearing in the TV film “What Goes Around Comes Around”, playing the daughter of Alyssa Milano’s character, and later shared on her Instagram account that Alyssa inspired her to achieve more goals not only in the field of acting, but also as a strong female in general.
?Grumpy Magazine?https://t.co/ZT0Kudk7Tp pic.twitter.com/F2RKTewCmx
— Kaylee Bryant (@BryantmKaylee) October 30, 2019
Kaylee then participated in such projects as “Santa Clarita Diet” (2016 – 2017) playing the role of Sarah, and “Speechless” (2016), as India Hertzfeld. Most recently, she’s appeared in the TV film “The Journey Ahead” in 2022, and “The Locksmith” in 2023.
Legacies (“The Vampire Diaries” spin-off)
In August 2018 Kaylee was announced to join the cast of the new CW Television Network series “Legacies”, the spin-off from “The Originals” and “The Vampire Diaries”. Kaylee landed the role of Josette “Josie” Saltzman, a young witch who is studying at the Salvatore School. According to the plot, Josie is only 15 years old, and the daughter of Alaric Saltzman and Josette “Jo” Laughlin, a powerful witch from the Gemini coven. Josie has a twin sister Lizzie, both born by their surrogate mother, Caroline Forbes. Kaylee shared that she was very excited to join the cast: ‘My mom and I used to sit with a bowl of popcorn once a week and tune in to The Vampire Diaries.
So when I got the audition, we had fake sides, fake characters, and I was still sitting there going, I think this is the Saltzman twins’. Before the shooting started, Kaylee and Jenny Boyd (Tasya in “Viking Quest”, and Amber Kelly in “Hex”), Kaylee’s on-screen twin-sister, met several times at cafes and tried to guess who was going to play whom of the Saltzman sisters, as they still didn’t know who they were going to play. The girls argued who was going to go blonde for the series, and it appeared to be Jenny. Kaylee shared she enjoyed playing the character of Josie, as it was a great pleasure to depict the complicated relationship between two sisters, who sacrificed their own happiness to make the other sister happy.
Current relationship status
Though a lot of rumors have surfaced in the media around Kaylee’s relationship status, she remains single, as she’s fully focused on her acting career, and it takes all her time. She came out as ‘queer’ in 2021.
Hobbies, favorite things and interesting facts
- Kaylee has two dogs named Bophi and Barrett, and she often posts photos and videos of them on her Instagram account. She likes going for walks with them.
- Kaylee also likes traveling, and has recently enjoyed her trip to Prague, Czech Republic, and to Tokio, Japan; she especially liked visiting Sensoji Temple, located in Asakusa Kannon-Do.
- As a huge fan of Disney cartoons and movies, Kaylee often visits Disneyland and buys a lot of stuffed toys there; her favorites are Winnie-the-Poohs.
- Kaylee also shared she skipped her school lessons pretending to be sick to stay home and watch some Disney cartoons she adored so much. Her favorite fantasy creature is unicorn – she often buys accessories with unicorns and even wears a ‘unicorn hat’.
Kaylee was inspired by her colleague and on-screen mother Alyssa Milano’s example, and started supporting the LGBT community as well as feminism. She dyed her hair purple to support the Spirit Day and LGBTQ youth, launched by GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) in 2010, and posted the photo on her Instagram account captioning it: ‘Did you know that more than half of all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students say they feel unsafe at school? No one should be bullied or called names simply for being who they are’. Kaylee is also worried about climate changes and fossil fuel usage.
Appearance, clothing style
Kaylee has middle-length brown hair which she likes to wear loosely curled, and dark-brown eyes. She is 5ft 8ins (1.73m) tall and weighs around 132 lbs (60kgs), with vital statistics of 32-24-33. As to her clothing style, she likes wearing designers’ clothes, as from her early childhood she had experience of wearing various luxury brands (even though she wore them only at photo shoots). At the moment, her favorite designers are Elisabetta Franchi, Roberto Cavalli and Versace.
Net worth and salary
As of mid-2024, Kaylee’s net worth is estimated to be around $1.2 million. As to her income, she gets up to $12,000 per episode she appears in. As “The Vampire Diaries” series and its spin-off are quite popular and successful, Kaylee’s participation in the “Legacies” project makes a great impact on her portfolio, so her net worth will very likely continue to grow.
