Famous Teens: Zac Efron
East High Goodbye
With the third High School Musical movie, Senior Year, in the can, it’s time for Zac Efron to figure out what’s next
By Bob Strauss
Growing up is hard to do. But it’s also exciting, especially if you’re in the cast of High School Musical 3: Senior Year.
And even more so if you happen to be cast member Zac Efron, the breakout star of the Disney Channel’s two blockbuster High School Musical TV movies.
Efron, now 20, wanted his third and final visit to East High’s halls to be special. It was.
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Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron
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“After we finished number two, we wanted to do something very
different,” enthuses the mop-topped heartthrob during an interview at
Los Angeles’ Four Seasons Hotel. “So we made a real movie this time!”
And Efron made real movie money — reportedly $3-million — to play
dancing basketball wiz Troy Bolton in the big screen-bound third film.
That should ease the singing actor’s transition into an adult career,
something that’s usually not so easy to do for even the brightest, most
popular Hollywood kids.
Vanessa Hudgens, Zac’s leading lady on- and off-screen, has already
gone through a heap of trouble after nude photos she made for Efron’s
eyes only leaked all over the internet. Conversely, Efron himself had
to audition several times to get a supporting role in last year’s
Hairspray because his Disneyfied image seemed too squeaky clean, at
first, to the edgier musical’s producers.
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This third HSM movie also sees Efron and Hudgens, or at least their
characters Troy and Gabriella, heading in different directions. After
each is accepted into a different, faraway, college, the question is
whether this ideal teen couple will be able to survive.
But, really, is there anything these kids can’t sing and dance their
ways through? While acknowledging that HSM3 is very much about facing
adulthood, Efron assures us that “the message of High School Musical is
have fun and live your high school years to their fullest.”
Efron admits that, with his role in the franchise finished, he’s now
just another cute young actor competing for work. That isn’t such a bad
thing, though.
“I don’t have rules for auditions,” he says. “It’s really about what
the vibe in the room is, how easygoing everyone is. Sometimes you get a
really uptight person that’s reading you for the audition, and I try to
sound really mature and professional. But then you get the cool person
that’s just a few years older than you who just wants to kick back and
talk about the part. That’s great.”
He’s already landed some good-sounding movie jobs — as the younger
version of Matthew Perry in the body-switch comedy Seventeen Again and
as a novice actor in the indie film Me and Orson Welles.
Doesn’t sound like he’ll be making many of his trademark dance floor
moves in either of those, but that doesn’t mean HSM3 will see the last
of his fancy footwork.
“Who knows?,” shrugs Efron, who grew up doing musical theatre in the
central California town of Arroyo Grande. “I love musicals, I’m a huge
fan — it probably all started with Grease when I was really young — so
I’ll keep doing ’em.
“When you watch a character sing, and they’re passionate about it, I think it really does mean a lot. It keeps you interested in the messages and what’s happening, but you’re tapping your foot the whole time. It’s almost like a pleasant distraction.”
Bob Strauss lives in Los Angeles where he writes about movies and filmmakers.