Zac Efron is at the next stage of his career, and he knows it. Though he's ceded his teen dream status to Taylor Lautner, the 22-year-old Efron is nothing if not savvy about picking his next wave of projects: Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles proved that Efron could go indie for a respected director, while the new romantic drama Charlie St. Cloud courts the female audience who's grown up with him, yet gives Efron his first meaty, adult role. Where will he go from here? As he told Movieline, that's the question at the forefront of his mind.
In advance of Comic-Con, we published an excerpt of Efron discussing his reluctance to commit to superhero roles, but here's the full interview, where Efron touches on the evolution of his acting technique, the projects he has in development at his new production shingle (and the idea behind its unique name), and how he feels when shirtless paparazzi photos of him make the cover of People magazine.
Your last two movies were directed by Burr Steers. What is it about him that makes him different from the other directors you've worked with?
Burr is very performance-oriented. He's very good at explaining different points of view and finding interesting motivations; basically, he's great with actors, and he's great with me. I'm not necessarily trained -- I never have been -- I've just kind of gone from project to project and learned as I went along, and I always thought everyone I worked with was an "actor's director" just because they were nice to actors. Burr has sort of redefined that for me. He's very generous, very giving, and also a perfectionist. I appreciate that because I am too, and I never want to quit until we've got it.
This is a much more subtle performance than you've had before, though. Is it more daunting to approach a scene where you're supposed to very little and hope it all comes through onscreen, or to be given a scene that's very showy and emotional?
I've always been more inclined to the showy and emotional. No one ever really told me otherwise! I didn't know what I was appreciating in other people's performances, and the movie that really helped me wrap my head around it was No Country For Old Men, where you are so deeply devoted to those characters. The actors are so specific, and they don't give too much -- actually, it's what they don't give that's more interesting. Burr's been a revelation with that sort of thing, explaining internalization and that sort of stuff.
He's more inclined to have you do more by doing less?
But by doing less, you can't do nothing. As long as you're thinking in terms of the character and as long as you really feel it, it's going to show. You don't have to necessarily have to emote what you're doing, you know? Burr is very Meisner. He's always dropping acting philosophies from different coaches, and I read this Meisner book he gave me after 17 Again that just sat on my coffee table forever, with this picture of an old-looking dude with gray hair and glasses on the cover. [Laughs] It's a hard one to turn the first page, but I just sat and down and committed that I was going to read it all, and then I couldn't put it down as soon as I started it. I read the whole thing in about three days. It's just fascinating, and it's all those little things that I wouldn't have gotten into if it weren't for Burr.
You say you aren't formally trained, but you've been acting in this business for a long time. Did you feel like there was a point where you had to break yourself of habits you developed as a child performer?
Yeah. It was always through observation, seeing what I liked from other people's performances in movies or fellow actors that I worked with. I've always been kind of improvisational, which is not always a good thing, believe it or not. I always thought it was great and really fun to do, but a lot of writers really want you to stick to the script, and it is your responsibility. [Laughs]
You'll have to get yourself into an Apatow movie, then.
I would love to, man. I would love to work for those guys.
You're at the age when actors get offered superheroes and tentpole films. Has that been happening to you? Do they come to you with, say, the new Spider-Man?
You know, they do here and there. When a superhero movie is about to get made, we're at different levels of conversation about it. I find that it's hard to commit to an action movie for the sake of doing action. I love action as much as the next guy, but I wouldn't say it's my favorite genre or one that I look for an amazing performance in. I'd say that it's what's underneath the action or what's driving it that's really important, and is that necessarily in a superhero movie? I don't know, maybe. It'd be fun to try. Every superhero origin story is pretty powerful, and there's usually something to tell there; it's not just about someone gaining powers, there's a lot more to it. There's life lessons in comic books, and I know, because I read them. I learned a s**tload from comics, you know? I think it would be about finding the right one.
But they've come to you before, and it hasn't been the right one or the right time?
It hasn't been the right time necessarily, or it's too early. I don't feel that I've earned it quite yet, to be honest. The people that you see them find for superheroes, you go, "Oh yeah, that's great. That guy is perfect, what a great idea." Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern? You go, "Finally, he's going to do something great! We've been waiting for it, he's done all these other things and now I want to see him as that character."
Or they go and cast someone like Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man, who isn't generally known to a wide audience.
But that's a whole different thing, you know? He's coming in as an unknown. Once you sort of establish yourself...I'm in-between, you know what I mean? Andrew Garfield is going to be amazing in that movie because he's got a brand-new, fresh perspective, and to be thrown into that character so quickly, he's going to be able to redefine that brand in a way that we've never seen before. It'll be amazing. You've sort of seen me before. [Laughs] I don't know. I think you really have to pay your dues once you've been established.
When you say you have to earn it, who do you have to earn it with: the audience, or yourself?
I think for me. I need to have the belief in myself to be able to go and do that. Also, I have a self-awareness of what is out there: Right now, if I was looking at me from someone else's eyes -- like the eyes of the guys who are going to go watch a superhero movie -- I can't say that I'd be "two thumbs up" for me to star in an action movie right now.
Why not?
Why would I be? I haven't done anything to pay those dues yet, I haven't made any movies for those fans yet. I think you have to earn the right to hold a gun. You have to earn the right to shoot web.
Would remaking a movie like the thriller Snabba Cash put you a step closer to that?
You know, maybe. I don't look at movies as an interim to doing something else, but Snabba Cash, I look at that character and I see someone who's driven by a naiveté and a classic class struggle. I see a way into that character that I could believe myself in, and that's few and far between these days. I read scripts, and people tell me, "Matt Damon was going to do this project." And I'm like, "Of course Matt Damon was going to do that project, it's f**kin' crazy! I can't do that." [Laughs]
You're much more self-deprecating than I thought you would be, Zac. You talk about having to learn technique and earn the places you want to go...does it worry you to have to do all that learning in the spotlight?
No, that part's fun, man. The stakes are high, but that's why it's interesting. I'm ready, man. That's the thing: I'm willing to put in that work to get there. I know that given the right time and the right guidance, I can do it, and I'm confident in myself in that way. I'm not shy about that. I know I will be able to do it.
You're generating material now under your own production banner, Ninjas Runnin' Wild. Please tell me about coming up with that title.
Well, I'm not going to tell you the exact story of how it came up...
Oh, it's a mystery.
Perhaps it is a mystery, and I think it should stay that way. [Laughs] Having watched movies all my life, I know you sit in a theater and those [production logos] pop up all the time before a movie, like the one Spyglass has with the man looking through [a telescope], that kind of stuff...
So will there be actual ninjas runnin' wild for yours?
I mean, hopefully! Hopefully. Just something that goes, "BLAAH!" that's a little crazy and different, and when you see it, you're like, "OK, here we go again." [Laughs] Something memorable that has some punch to it.
You're attached to a workplace comedy that was just announced in the trades. What can you tell me about it? Is it in the vein of The Office?
No, it's not like The Office. It's...how would I describe it? We're literally still looking at treatments for it, so it's really early on. Right now, it's about a young man working his way to the top, and the lengths he has to go to succeed. Is that good?
Is it a dark comedy?
No, not really. Well, wait. Is it dark? I don't know yet. [Laughs] It's not written. I sure hope there's some dark moments in it, because I love that stuff.
It was like, what am I going to do: go to Hawaii and not go to the beach and say for the rest of my life that I didn't do it because [the paparazzi] were there, or am I just going to brave it, go out, and let all that happen?
Is that just something you've had to fold into your daily life: If you choose to do something outside, there will be someone who will take pictures of you doing it?
Sort of, more or less. I mean, I'll say that it goes through my mind a lot. You just have to know that if you're in a place that isn't private property -- if you're in anywhere public -- more often than not, there's going to be someone there. If you're even anywhere where there's people nowadays...people are so integrated with their [mobile phone] cameras. It's like The Matrix.
So you could be eating at a restaurant, and you know that girl at the corner table is taking a picture of you on her camera phone that she's going to post to Twitter or Perez Hilton?
It goes through my mind sometimes, you know? I try not to dwell on it, and I try not to put myself in those scenarios. It gets frustrating. I'm definitely aware of it most of the time when it's happening -- I feel like I kind of know what's really going on.
At least you got the cover of People for "Best Beach Bodies" instead of for doing something bad.
It's not the worst thing in the world. And you know, aside from that, I had this amazing trip with my brother. He's just graduated from school, and I haven't been able to connect with him as much as I've wanted to since I've been away filming and going on trips. I really got to take him away from the family for the first time to go on a brothers trip, and we had the time of our lives. We just tore it up! Every single day, by the time 8:30 rolled around [at night], one of us would conk out and then we'd wake up at 7 and have a full day of hiking through the jungles of Maui or surfing. We lived it up, and it was really fun.
[Lead Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images]