“I haven’t watched that in years,” Zac Efron said while rewatching scenes from “High School Musical” with Vanity Fair. “That’s crazy.”
Efron, who got his Hollywood start playing teenage basketball-star-turned-thespian in a trilogy of “High School Musical” movies, recently starred in “A Family Affair,” a Netflix rom-com alongside Nicole Kidman and Joey King.
In wake of the new flick, Efron sat down with Vanity Fair and reminisced on the movie that started it all: “High School Musical.”
“Not many people know this, you know, but ‘High School Musical’ was just a made-for-TV movie and it was very small. So we had a very condensed shooting schedule and very limited rehearsal time,” Efron said.
Efron watched his performance of “Get’cha Head in the Game” — a song which features a singing and dancing basketball team.
“I really drilled all those shots,” Efron recalled. “There’s no CGI in there. I don’t think we had the budget for that. So that makes me feel good. That just takes me back to where all of us were at. All the young men on that team, we were so young and so incredibly motivated.”
He continued: “This whole sequence with the basketballs and the dribbling in that movie — we started practicing with basketballs, and I think we might’ve practiced it for two days prior to doing all that in sync. We had maybe two, three-hour rehearsals with basketballs. After like five takes, we nailed it. Like we got it all in one. Like they didn’t cut from start to finish, and all of us were blown away.
“I think that was the first time all of us when, ‘Is this gonna be cool?’” Efron said, laughing. “This felt really cool. It was a really special moment, and I’m still just proud of all those guys for doing that. Cause it was hard. It was hard. You can’t predict where a basketball is going. A lot of people got hit in the face. It was hilarious, man.”
Following his starring role in “High School Musical,” Efron’s career took off. He has since had roles in dozens of big-budget films — the most recent being “The Iron Claw” and “A Family Affair.”
Efron still credits the Disney musical with launching his career. “I’m just eternally, eternally grateful” for “High School Musical,” Efron said in December at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, per The Wrap. “I still think about it every day — I sing the songs in the shower.”
Does ‘A Family Affair’ stack up to Efron’s previous movies?
I’ve been a Zac Efron fan since I first laid eyes on the star in 2006 when “High School Musical” came out. I was 7 years old then. Now, nearly two decades later, I still consider myself a major Efron fan.
But I only have one word for “A Family Affair”: Yikes.
It is not good. And honestly, I was disappointed. I was excited to see Efron star in another rom-com, but the plot was weak.
I have to admit, I actually fell asleep three-quarters of the way through the movie — which speaks to the dullness of the plot. I woke up to my family grumbling about what a waste of time it was to finish the movie.
And I’m not the only one who felt this way.
- “You could almost call the movie ‘The Longest Eye Roll,’” panned The New York Times.
- “Despite the A-list leads, a poor script and lack of originality will keep A Family Affair from being a hit,” wrote The Chicago Reader.
- And The Telegraph roasted the movie for being “an entire bingo card of misfires,” and “a comedy deficient in laughs.”
I’m not withdrawing my support for Zac Efron quite yet, but “A Family Affair” is a blemish on his Hollywood resume.