Zac Efron Rewatches High School Musical, Neighbors, The Greatest Showman & More

♪ Get a, get your head in the game ♪

♪ We gotta get a, get a, get a, get ahead of the game ♪

♪ Whoo ♪

I really drilled all those shots.

There's no CGI in there.

I don't think we had the budget for that.

So that makes me feel good.

Hi, I'm Zac Efron,

and I'm going to re-watch some scenes

from throughout my career.

Some of these are probably gonna be pretty visceral,

but some of are probably gonna be really fun.

I have no idea. [laughs]

All right, here we go.

['80s retro music]

[VCR clicks]

[rewind zinging]

What are you- What is this?

What are you wearing?

What are you- What are you doing?

Yeah.

We're throwing a Robert De Niro party.

[Mac] Oh.

Should be pretty fucking loud.

It's probably gonna go pretty fucking late too.

I'm, uh, Taxi Driver De Niro.

Yeah, I'm Meet the Fockers De Niro.

[Zac laughing]

I'm watching you. I'm watching you.

That's dead on.

Who did that mole on your face?

Did you do that yourself?

Yes, I did.

Yes, I did, Focker. Yes, I did, Focker.

Oh my God, that's so funny.

Wow. I remember this day oddly like very vividly.

There was so much going on. Seth is so good at improv.

He's like, Seth to this day, is one of my favorite actors

of all time.

In this scene in particular,

I remember really not having a De Niro impression,

like a very good one at all.

And just kind of knowing I was gonna be winging it

and hopefully betting on the fact,

the worse it was, the funnier it would be.

And it worked out. [laughs]

I was blown away though when all of a sudden out of nowhere

Dave Franco had completely nailed his De Niro impression.

Like he just crushes that.

Are you talking to me?

Yes. Yes.

Are you talking to me?

He literally looks like him. He looks like De Niro.

So I'm here like upfront sucking at doing Taxi De Niro.

And then he comes out and it's like says, [laughs]

Yeah, you, Focker. I'm talking to you.

I was like, Did you practice this? It was so funny.

I was like, What the fuck? Dave's killing this.

[Mac] Who are you?

Oh, I'm Sam Jackson, you know, from Jackie Brown.

What the fuck, Charles? [laughs]

Whoo-ah! Whoo-ah!

[Group] Whoo-ah!

That's Al Pacino. That's not even, yeah.

Scent of a Woman?

[Group] Whoo-ah! [Zac laughing]

There's no consistency here.

Seth and Rose doing what they do so well,

which was just naturally reacting

to this ridiculousness outside the window.

The whoo-ah, whoo-ah like that's not even De Niro,

that's Pacino.

And I don't remember who did it first, but someone did it

and we all just started copying it.

[laughs] And Seth's reaction to it was very genuine.

It was like, That's not even,

you guys, that's not even an impression.

And we just kept doing it to make him upset

'cause it was making him mad and it stayed in.

But hat's one of the most fun movies I've ever filmed.

So grateful for that and that experience.

Man, I feel like I'm back there. I haven't watched this.

This is great. I've never watch this stuff.

This is insane. It's cool.

I know they're making it look like I do this,

but I don't do this. [crew laughing]

I really don't. [laughs]

[VCR clicks] ['80s retro music]

[rewind zinging] [VCR clicks]

♪ Coach said to fake right and break left ♪

♪ Watch out for the pick and keep an eye on the fence ♪

♪ Gotta run the given goal, take the ball to the hoop ♪

♪ And don't be afraid to shoot the outside drill ♪

[Zac laughing]

First thing that comes to mind

is I really drilled all those shots.

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.

Not many people know this but, you know,

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.

Our choreographer, Chucky, is actually in that shot,

and Kenny Ortega had pretty big ambitions for this movie.

But I think he was pleasantly surprised

when all the boys were like excited

to not only fulfill what he wanted

but to take it one step further.

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 probably 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.

And I think that was the first time all of us went,

Is this gonna be cool? [laughs]

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.

Like you can't predict where basketball's going.

A lot of people got hit in the face. It was hilarious, man.

It's so funny.

I just see I look so light in my feet in that. Oh my gosh.

Oh wow. Oh, I love you, Kenny.

I miss you guys. Man, that's bringing it all back.

I haven't watched that in years. That's crazy.

[VCR clicks] ['80s retro music]

[rewind zinging] [VCR clicks]

Bye, Chris.

Bye. See ya.

Oh my God, you're not Jack and Rose.

Just get out of the car! Get out of the car.

[crickets trilling]

[car door slams]

What do you want?

I didn't come here looking to have sex

with your mom, all right?

I came to your house looking for you

so I could offer you this job.

I know, God. Ah!

Joey's so good in that scene. She's so great in that.

You know, I had seen her earlier work

from when she was a little bit younger,

and I noticed back then

that like she was just acting beyond, you know,

anybody else I'd seen at her age.

We had so much fun working together as we kind of got back

to that place where we were in that De Niro scene.

Like that was the kind of the shape of the scene

that we had planned, but a lot of that stuff we added

our own like flavor too, which was really fun.

Celebrity? She didn't sleep with a celebrity.

That's derogatory.

Okay, I'm a movie star. She slept with a movie star.

Oh God. [laughs] I don't remember saying that that way.

I wanted there to be a clear delineation

between Chris Cole and like myself.

As much as I can relate in ways to things

that Chris might be going through, I think the way

that he handles it is very different from myself.

I got to play like the worst version

of somebody experiencing fame and sort of the fear

and the imposter syndrome that comes with that.

On the one hand, I'm still like starstruck

every time I see her.

So that's, and it's never,

I don't think that's ever gonna change.

It's weird. I even to this day.

I really just am in a sense just always gonna be

in permanent awe of her.

I don't know, I've got a deep trust

and like respect for her that I think just makes it fun.

Like I look forward to scenes with her,

and there's very little stress.

I just gotta get past that initial,

You're Nicole Kidman and we're doing a scene together.

Okay, cool. Let's go

[VCR clicks] ['80s retro music]

[rewind zinging] [VCR clicks]

♪ Don't you wanna get away ♪

♪ To a whole new part you're gonna play ♪

♪ 'Cause I got what you need to go with me and take the ride ♪

♪ To the other side ♪

♪ So if you do like I do, so if you do like me ♪

♪ To get the cage 'cause we're gonna make the key ♪

I saw that one back fairly recently.

My friend invited me over for dinner,

and he's got quite a few kids and it was just on.

I realized I had entered a trap.

[crew laughing]

[laughs] So I sat there and 20 minutes later

we were all like up singing and dancing

and doing like acrobatics on the couch.

It was really fun.

I mean, I love, musicals are very, very near

and dear to my heart.

I think they always will be.

Michael Gracey,

I think Michael Gracey and Hugh,

they're incredibly special people.

I think that Michael is such a visionary.

I can admit that when at the time that he came to me

and sort of pitched this film to me,

a musical was probably not the first thing

I was looking for at the time.

Then he sort of played me the music

and talked me through his vision,

and it was one of the most ambitious [chuckles]

but also well thought out explanations of a story

that I've ever experienced.

This is, it's kind of similar to working

with Sean Durkin on The Iron Claw.

It was very clear that Michael Gracey had this in his dreams

and he was gonna bring to life a very vivid dream

that meant something very special to him

and was not one to compromise.

So if you're gonna make a musical,

you better make it damn good.

And I felt like this was a chance to make it good.

♪ Go there, suddenly we're free to fly ♪

♪ We're going to the other side ♪

♪ So if do like I do, to the other side ♪

♪ So if you do like me, going to the other side ♪

The choreography for this scene

was actually pretty extensive.

All of those shot glasses, we really did that.

And the guy in the middle, his name's Cloud,

he was extraordinarily talented,

and we practiced for weeks and weeks to get that right.

To not mess that up was, we had to catch 'em all

in the right timing, drink them on the right timing,

send them back, catch new ones, do dancing in the middle,

and not mess up the words.

And it was really hard.

It looks effortless and I'm happy that it looks that way,

but that's how, like how Carrie Grant is.

Like it seems effortless, but there's a lot

of rehearsal that goes into that.

I love seeing that back. That's wild, it's crazy.

[crowd cheering]

[intense music]

[music softens]

The way that he revealed Zendaya's character,

that was such a cool thing.

And bless her heart, she really did that every time.

She like flew from across the room [laughs]

on a trapeze and then like went into her closeup like a lot.

It was very impressive. I mean, Zen's the best.

She's just, she's great. She's down for anything.

She's super brave. I've got so much respect for Zen.

I hope we get to do something again in the future.

She's the best. I'll never forget it.

It's really nice to watch this stuff with you guys.

It's weird. I'm like getting emotional over this.

It's crazy.

[VCR clicks] ['80s retro music]

[rewind zinging] [VCR clicks]

[Kevin exhales]

You okay, Dad?

Lee, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, boys.

[sniffles] You shouldn't see me like this.

A man doesn't cry.

Sean Durkin, the director of this movie,

had a very carefully drawn out plan

for the execution of this film and, of course,

on purpose put this scene probably very much last stop

in the film, and I think it was for good reason.

Kevin von Erich was never meant to be seen crying,

like 'cause the family was not allowed to show weakness.

And I thought that was a really fantastic note

from Sean and a brilliant kind of thing

to guide me through the movie.

And there were a lot of scenes, I think,

earlier in the film that warranted tears.

I wanted to cry a lot during this movie,

and he was just saying, No, hold it back,

hold it back for the right moment.

But then this day came along,

it was the last day of filming,

and I couldn't hold back tears.

And all I'm thinking here is, Don't cry, dude.

You're gonna have to do it again.

Like Sean's not gonna go for this.

[laughs] And when they said, you know,

We'll be your brothers, I just lost it.

We'll be your brothers, Dad.

Yeah Dad, we'll be your brothers.

I thought I'd ruin the take at that point,

but I decided to stay in it.

And when we finished, the boys kind of ran away

and we continued the take.

And I looked up at Sean. I was about to apologize.

He's like, No, that was it. I was like, Really?.

So this was the first time I think

that he wanted Kevin to experience this emotion.

So I was happy that Sean was happy. It's a cool scene.

[VCR clicks] ['80s retro music]

[rewind zinging] [VCR clicks]

Well, thank you so much, Vanity Fair.

Thank you for watching.