Zac is featured on the cover of one of W Magazine’s Best Performers Issue!! Check out his interviews below!

W MAGAZINE – It’s been 17 years since Zac Efron first sang, danced, and dribbled his way into the hearts of a generation as the basketball star Troy Bolton in the High School Musical trilogy. That background would prove to be invaluable for his latest athletic turn as the real-life professional wrestler Kevin Von Erich in A24’s The Iron Claw. The film, directed by Sean Durkin and co-starring Harris Dickinson and Jeremy Allen White, follows the remarkable story of the family dynasty famous for their signature “iron claw” move in the ring as well as what would become known as the tragic “Von Erich curse.” To truthfully portray Von Erich, Efron underwent a drastic physical transformation that involved bulking up his muscle weight and donning a feathered ’80s wig that made the now 36-year-old almost unrecognizable. Here, Efron discusses entering the world of pro-wrestling and how the High School Musical soundtrack haunted him on set.

Were you a fan of wrestling before you starred as a pro wrestler in The Iron Claw?

Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to watch wrestling. My parents didn’t like it because my brother and I would then start wrestling. But we snuck it. The Iron Claw is about the Von Erich family. These guys completely changed the world of wrestling.

Did your background in dance help you with wrestling?

Dancing and wrestling are surprisingly similar. There’s a choreographed element to both, and the more you do it, the better you get. Also, just the sense of moving with a partner: Sometimes you lead, and sometimes you’re holding on to the other guy. The learning curve for wrestling is you just go for it. For stuff like climbing up on the ropes and jumping off, you’ve just got to nut up and go for it. There’s no real practicing.

You’re essentially wrestling nearly naked, in a Speedo-like suit. Was that difficult?

It doesn’t leave much to the imagination! I got pretty beat up, but you feel like a warrior. It’s kind of fun.

What was the first acting job that you booked?

I think it was an episode of ER. Maura Tierney, who plays my mom in The Iron Claw, saved me. My character had a bad gunshot wound and was tossed on the sidewalk in front of the hospital. Maura rescued me, and they pulled the bullet out. I’m pretty sure I died.

Where was your first kiss?

In a tree house. We played spin the bottle. It was her birthday, and a bunch of us climbed up to the tree house. There were candles—it was pretty cool.

Who was your cinematic crush?

Tia Carrere from Wayne’s World. I loved her. She just seemed like a rock star.

Were you a theatrical child?

Yeah, as soon as I found music, I was pretty much always singing and dancing to a certain extent, whether it was in community theater, in school, or improv.

Harris Dickinson said he was singing High School Musical songs to you on set all the time.

People like to do that to mess with me. It’s pretty funny. We had a scene where we show up to a party where Stanley, I think, is singing a song. He performed it live, and then they just continued to move on to another song, and it was something from High School Musical. I had to stay in character while that was going on, and everybody else was just losing it. The camera was on me, and I was just trying to stay in character. It put me in Kevin’s shoes a little bit. I felt very uncomfortable.

Zac is featured on the cover of Variety with a great photoshoot and interview!

When Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” came out in 2008, Zac Efron was two movies deep into the Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” franchise, in which he played singing, dancing basketball phenom Troy Bolton. He’d been the swoony romantic lead in the movie musical “Hairspray,” opposite John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer, was shortly to play opposite Matthew Perry in “17 Again,” and had pulled his T-shirt up on the cover of Rolling Stone under the headline “The New American Heartthrob.” At 21, Efron might have seemed like the kind of actor who was as likely to watch footage of the moon landing and decide to become an astronaut as he was to take inspiration from Mickey Rourke’s grizzled, broken-down performance.

And yet. “That film impacted me in a really specific way,” he recalls over lunch in Los Angeles. “I was watching it with my dad, and I remember looking at him in that moment, saying, ‘That’s what I want to do. That’s where my heart is.

It was easier for Efron to imagine himself there than for his parents — an electrical engineer and an administrative assistant comfortably raising the new American heartthrob — to understand his passion. “It’s got to be weird,” Efron goes on, “watching your child go through the more challenging route. I know that at times they had to be thinking, ‘He shouldn’t even do this stuff.’”

Efron had, to that point, made it through the maelstrom of Disney stardom, maintaining an image of squeaky-clean ambition even as his peers, from Shia LaBeouf to Lindsay Lohan, stumbled in the glare of a hot spotlight. Lanky and laconic, Efron was, above all, low-key — so much so that the tabloid coverage, inevitable for a star of his magnitude, focused primarily on his relationship with “High School Musical” co-star Vanessa Hudgens. (The pair confirmed their breakup in 2010.) The pressures of Hollywood took their toll eventually — Efron entered rehab for substance abuse in 2013, at age 25 — but his early days are remembered first for Troy Bolton, a tweenage dream of the ultimate nice guy.

The challenging journey Efron has taken to escape that character and image has lasted 15 years. That time has held a fair amount of movies, and a fair amount of living — but he got there. In “The Iron Claw,” the new film by Sean Durkin, Efron delivers a performance whose ambition will surprise you. It’s a movie-star turn as a character whose tragedy is that he can’t use charisma to bypass his problems. Durkin compares Efron to Robert De Niro in “The Deer Hunter,” calling him a “quiet leader”; and to Burt Lancaster in “The Swimmer,” “because he’s in a Speedo the whole time.”

He’s kidding, kind of — but Efron’s physicality is central to this work. With his hair cut into a Prince Valiant bowl cut, Efron has transformed himself into a Marvel-esque specimen. He’s playing Kevin Von Erich, a pro wrestler living through the deaths of each of his brothers in sequence. The real-life Von Erich was one of a family of grapplers on the 1980s circuit who were stalked by a series of fatal mishaps; on-screen, their father, played by Holt McCallany, forces them forward with a grim refusal to acknowledge their feelings, even as they mourn brother after brother. Men, they’re told, don’t cry — and so all of those feelings are converted into athleticism, or bottled away until they burst. Through it all, Efron battles with ever-increasing savagery in the ring, trying desperately to keep a lid on his feelings. His body is equipped to fight and to win; it also is visual evidence of the kind of choking masculinity Kevin forces himself to inhabit.

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Zac and his The Iron Claw co-stars, Jeremy Allen White and Harris Dickinson cover Entertainment Weekly! Check out the new shoot in the gallery and an interview below!

The stars of The Iron Claw may not be blood relatives, but spending an afternoon with them feels a lot like hanging out with three actual brothers. In between takes at their EW cover shoot in late October, Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, and Harris Dickinson have an easy camaraderie — finishing each other’s sentences and walking together in step as they navigate a dusty mountain road above a Simi Valley horse ranch at sunset.

As with all siblings, spiritual or otherwise, there’s plenty of good-natured ribbing — sometimes literally. Around lunchtime, a crew member hands Efron, White, and Dickinson a plate of ribs to eat on camera, and before long, all three are coated in a fine layer of barbecue sauce. But even as they poke fun at the stains on each other’s shirts, they really just seem content to hang out. Later (after a change of clothes), they sit down for an interview, and when asked how they trained to play members of the legendary Von Erich wrestling family in the new biopic, they mostly just want to heap praise on one another.

“I was blown away on the first day that you guys came to work,” Efron, 36, marvels. “You were jumping off ropes and doing huge hits.”

“We had some time [training] in L.A.,” White, 32, replies. “But I don’t know, Zac, I never saw you not good at anything.”

Dickinson, 27, admits to occasionally feeling silly in the ring, especially when their wrestling coach told them to go home and punch pillows for practice. But the British actor’s onscreen brothers won’t stand for any self-deprecation. “From the moment you come out, you’re just doing heavy drops on the mat,” Efron tells him, his voice tinged with eldest brother pride, not unlike the Von Erich brother he plays in the film. “And your claw is killer.”

That fraternal bond serves them well in The Iron Claw (out Dec. 22), the highly anticipated A24 drama about one of wrestling’s most iconic dynasties. The film focuses on four of the six Von Erich brothers — Kevin (Efron), David (Dickinson), Kerry (White), and Mike (Stanley Simons) — who built a wrestling empire in the 1970s and ’80s, led by their domineering father Fritz (Mindhunter’s Holt McCallany). But even as they rose to international fame, the family struggled both in and outside of the ring. Five of the Von Erich brothers (all except Kevin) died young, succumbing to health issues, tragic accidents, or suicide. The back-to-back deaths sparked rumors of a family curse — a cautionary tale of how sometimes success can exact a brutal price.

Read more at EW.com

Amazing news! I didn’t think a premiere would happen because of the SAG-AFTRA but I’m glad Zac and the cast will be able to have a premiere for the movie!

DALLAS NEWS – The world premiere of The Iron Claw, featuring actors from the movie and wrestling legend Kevin Von Erich will be Nov. 8 in Dallas, A24 announced Wednesday.

Additional details such as the venue and showtime have not been released. An A24 spokeswoman said more details will follow.

The biographical drama centers around Kevin Von Erich and his brothers, who started their pro wrestling careers in Dallas. The film is scheduled for nationwide release on Dec. 22.

Von Erich and his family are expected to appear at the premiere, according to A24. A family spokesman said the Von Erich family is working out the details and will view the movie this week.

A24 also announced that director Sean Durkin along with actors Zac Efron (Kevin Von Erich) and Jeremy Allen White (Kerry Von Erich) will attend the premiere.

Harris Dickinson (David Von Erich), Stanley Simons (Mike Von Erich), Holt McCallany (Fritz Von Erich) and Maura Tierney (Doris Von Erich) are also expected to attend.

Kevin Von Erich talked about the movie during a stop on his “An Evening with Kevin Von Erich: Stories From the Top Rope” tour at the Majestic Theatre in Dallas on Sept. 1.

His public appearance in Dallas marked his return to Texas. He recently moved from Kauai, Hawaii, to a ranch he bought near the south-central Texas town of Boerne.

Yay! Zac is on the October cover of Men’s Health! He looks so great! You can check out the photoshoot in the gallery and his interview below. I will add scans later when the magazine releases!

MEN’S HEALTH – WELL, THERE THEY ARE. After Zac Efron removes his jacket and drapes it over the chair beside him, my eyes immediately zoop to his biceps peeking out from beneath his T-shirt. I spot a vein so protuberant that it looks like it’s about to exit his skin.

I had seen Efron’s biceps earlier, while on set for his photo shoot. When I got to the ranch in the hills north of Malibu, he was zooming about on an ATV, doing wild circles around the photographer and creating a cloud of dust. The sharp lines of his arms were apparent even through a dust tornado and even from a safe distance away.

When he arrives at the steakhouse in Thousand Oaks, where the staff has squirreled us away in a back room behind the kitchen, Efron positions himself as though to background the biceps—leaning forward, with his hands loosely intertwined on the table—and I feel louche for peeking.

I feel even loucher for writing about them, but the thing is, Efron’s arms have become part of his whole deal, appendages to his identity as well as to his torso—to say nothing of the torso itself. In 2017’s Baywatch, his onscreen abs looked almost painted on. That film was a fit-guy debutant waltz for Efron. People started looking very closely at his body after that.

Efron has been under scrutiny since 2006, when, at age 17, he played a wholesome, peppy, Bieber-haired Disney jock in High School Musical. Next, he starred in a slew of romances, rom-coms, and com-coms: Neighbors, The Lucky One, We Are Your Friends, That Awkward Moment, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, et cetera ad infinitum. His list of titles is stunningly long, and wildly varied, for someone so young; after Baywatch, he began veering toward dramas and shot a Netflix travel show about sustainability called Down to Earth with Zac Efron. (Season 2 drops in late fall.)

Then the pandemic hit, and the guy who could do it all—and who, since he was a teenager, had been doing it all, all the time—did very little. He sequestered himself in Byron Bay, a beachy haven in Australia. He slept on a hammock in the trees. He dated a civilian. He took moonlit swims with phosphorescent plankton that glowed around him with every motion.

Meanwhile, everyone else was still talking about his body. In July 2020, as Netflix viewers began watching Down to Earth, some commented on his “dad bod”—which, to be clear, was a dad bod only relative to his lifeguard bod. The New York Post called it “a far cry from his ripped physique in Baywatch”; Twitter called him Daddy.

A world away, Efron, too, was rethinking the body he’d become known for. He was reconsidering how he ate (vegan), how he trained (really hard), and how he slept (poorly). Efron, like many of us, has newly emerged from his own pandemic cocoon, blinking in the sunlight, ready to unfurl a revamped personality with back-to-school optimism. Besides a new health and fitness philosophy, Efron has a new movie—The Greatest Beer Run Ever (premiering September 30 on Apple TV+), in which he acts opposite Russell Crowe and Bill Murray—and new career cravings.
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DEADLINE – EXCLUSIVE: Days after announcing his next star studded comedy at Netflix, Zac Efron is continuing to build up his diversified slate as he is set to star in A24’s The Iron Claw, the latest drama from writer-director Sean Durkin. A24 is set to finance and produce the pic with Durkin writing and directing. Producing alongside A24 are Tessa Ross, Derrin Schlesinger and Harrison Huffman. The film was developed by House Productions, with the support of Access Entertainment, and BBC Films.

Based on the true story of the Von Erichs, the film follows the rise and fall of the Von Erich family, a dynasty of wrestlers who made a huge impact on the sport from the 1960s to the present day.

Efron is having himself quite the moment right now as he looks to the future of his business by developing a broad range of starring vehicles that are not only character driven crowdpleasers but introduce him to filmmakers like Durkin that bring the most out of him as an actor. With his Netflix comedy he gets a fun, crowd-pleaser with plenty of star power that also reunites him with his Paperboy co-star Nicole Kidman. With The Iron Claw, the drama brings him a piece of material that is transformative and gritty and is surely unlike anything he’s done before in his career.

On top of these projects he also has the Netflix series Down To Earth which was hugely popular during the pandemic and won him a daytime Emmy for producing and is currently shooting its second season. Coming up next is the highly-anticipated Greatest Beer Run Ever at Apple which is Pete Farrelly’s follow-up to his Oscar winning Green Book that took home the Oscar for Best Picture and won Farrelly a screenplay Oscar. Efron is front and center in that film which is likely to be in the mix this award season given its pedigree.

Awesome news! A new project for Zac!

DEADLINE – Netflix has set an all-star ensemble for its new untitled romcom as sources tell Deadline Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron and Joey King are set to star in the pic, with Behind The Candelabra writer Richard LaGravenese directing. LaGravenese co-wrote the script with Carrie Solomon while Joe Roth, Jeff Kirschenbaum and Alyssa Altman producing for Roth/Kirschenbaum Films. Netflix bought the script from Solomon earlier this year which attracted the three leads.

The story is set following a surprising romance which kicks off comic consequences for a young woman, her mother and her movie star boss as they face the complications of love, sex, and identity. The film was recently greenlit and will shoot later this year.

The film gives Kidman a fun comedy on her upcoming slate following a year of strong dramatic turns which started with the Hulu series Nine Perfect Strangers. She followed that up with her Oscar-nominated role as Lucille Ball in Being Ricardos.

For Efron it brings him back to Netflix where he most recently played serial Killer Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Next up for Efron is Apple’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, Peter Farrelly’s first film since his Oscar-winning Green Book.

King remains as busy an actor as any one out there which includes Hulu’s The Princess, which bows July 1 as well as the highly-anticipated Bullet Train. She too is also a favorite of Netflix following the success of The Kissing Booth trilogy which she stars in for the streamer.

THR – Bill Murray is also circling a role.

Apple is circling Peter Farrelly’s Green Book follow-up, The Greatest Beer Run Ever, with Zac Efron and Russell Crowe now attached to star.

The Skydance project is based on the book by Joanna Molloy and John “Chickie” Donohue, The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A True Story of Friendship Stronger Than War. The movie tells the true story of Donohue, who left New York in 1967 for Vietnam to track down and share a few beers with his childhood friends serving in the Army.

Bill Murray, who worked with Farrelly on Kingpin and Osmosis Jones, is also eyeing a role in the movie, but sources note that his deal is nowhere near to being closed.

A previous package of Beer Run had Viggo Mortensen and Dylan O’Brien attached to star.

Brian Currie, who co-wrote Green Book, and Pete Jones (Hall Pass) will write with Farrelly.

David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger and Andrew Muscato will serve as producers. Granger, Goldberg and Aimee Rivera are overseeing for Skydance.

Efron, who is repped by CAA, Alchemy and Felker Toczek, will next film the Three Men and a Baby remake.

Great news! Zac has been cast in another project. This one is a survival thriller titled “Gold”

DEADLINE – Zac Efron (The Greatest Showman) has boarded survival thriller Gold, which Altitude Film Sales will introduce to buyers at the upcoming AFM virtual market and will co-rep domestic sales on with CAA Media Finance.

Actor Anthony Hayes (Animal Kingdom) will direct and co-star, based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Polly Smyth. John Schwarz and Michael Schwarz will produce through their Deeper Water Films banner (Danger Close: The Battle Of Long Tan), alongside Hayes for Rogue Star Pictures.

The film will follow two strangers traveling through a desert who stumble across the biggest gold nugget ever found. They hatch a plan to protect and excavate their bounty with one man leaving to secure the necessary equipment. The other man remains and must endure harsh desert elements, ravenous wild dogs and mysterious intruders, whilst battling the sinking suspicion that he has been abandoned to his own fate.

Shoot is due to get underway in Australia this month.

HOD’s include editor Sean Lahiff (Wolf Creek 2) production designer Sam Hobbs (Red Dog), DoP Ross Giardina (The Dressmaker) and make up and prosthetics by Jennifer Lamphee (The Wolverine).

Madman Entertainment will release in Australia and the film will then screen on Oz streamer Stan, which is backing the film. Executive producers are Andrew Mann, Peter Touche, Simon Williams, Paul Wiegard, Will Clarke, Andy Mayson, Nick Forward and Mike Runagall.

Michael Schwarz of Deeper Water Films said: “Gold is a classic morality tale told in an excitingly modern fashion, and the creative symmetry between Anthony and Zac has everyone involved incredibly excited to bring this film to global audiences.”

Director Anthony Hayes added: “This is an exciting, gripping and timely tale about greed, humanity, who we are, what we’ve done to the world and where we are heading if we aren’t careful. To have Zac Efron as my main man on this film is an absolute gift and to see what he is creating already is like nothing we’ve seen from him before. I can’t wait to deliver this bold, visceral and cinematic film to audiences all around the world.”

Efron is represented by CAA, Alchemy Entertainment and Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson.

COLLIDER – Today marks the 40th anniversary of Stephen King‘s classic novel Firestarter, so it’s fitting that Collider can exclusively report that Zac Efron has signed on to star in a new adaptation of the sci-fi thriller from Universal, Blumhouse and Weed Road.

Up-and-coming filmmaker Keith Thomas will direct from a script by Blumhouse favorite Scott Teems (Halloween Kills). King’s 1980 novel followed a young girl who develops pyrokinetic abilities and is abducted by a secret government agency that wants to harness her powerful gift as a weapon.

Efron will play the girl’s father, Andy McGee, and given the fact that he turns 33 next month and Drew Barrymore was only eight years old when she filmed the original Firestarter, there’s no question he could conceivably play the parent of a young child. In fact, Efron just signed on to star in a Three Men and a Baby remake for Disney+.

Jason Blum is producing for Blumhouse alongside Oscar winner Akiva Goldsman and his Weed Road banner, while Martha De Laurentiis will executive produce alongside Teems, having served as an associate producer on the original 1984 movie.

That fiery film starred a young Barrymore alongside David Keith and Heather Locklear as her parents. The film also featured a top-notch supporting cast that included Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, Art Carney, Louise Fletcher. Of course, any Firestarter remake will come down to the little girl at its center, and I already floated the name of one young actress when this project was first announced.

Efron is coming off the best reviews of his career for his turn as Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and I’ve enjoyed his recent turns in hip indies such as The Beach Bum and The Disaster Artist. He also hosted the successful Netflix docuseries Down to Earth with Zac Efron. The actor is represented by CAA and Alchemy Entertainment and and Felker, Toczek, Suddleson, Abramson.