Working on a big new role is Zac Efron.
The Greatest Beer Run Ever star, 35, was captured on camera on the The Iron Claw set in Louisiana on Monday. Efron was checking his phone while standing shirtless with a towel around his waist. He had a noticeable new hairstyle.
Efron portrays professional wrestler Kevin Von Erich in A24’s Iron Claw. The movie, which is based on a true story, follows the rise and fall of the Von Erich family, a wrestling dynasty that had a significant influence on the sport from the 1960s to the present.
The movie also features Lily James, Maura Tierney, Jeremy Allen White, and Harris Dickinson and was written and directed by Martha Marcy May Marlene director Sean Durkin.
In a recent interview with Men’s Health, Efron discussed his experience training for the role and how he decided to approach it differently than he did for the 2017 film Baywatch. After recovering from the intensive training for that project, he claimed he “went into a very bad depression, for a long time.”
I don’t know if that Baywatch look is truly attainable, he remarked. “The skin just has too little water. Like, it’s not real; it’s CGI. Lasix, potent diuretics were needed to do that. I don’t have to do that, then. I would much rather have an additional 2 to 3 percent body fat.
Then Efron “What it would be like to not have to be in shape all the time was once a dream of mine. What if I just tell myself, “F—- it,” and let it go? I gave it a try, and it worked. And despite my expectations that it would be amazing, I was just miserable. I didn’t feel alive, and neither did my body feel in good health. I felt slow and weighed down.”
According to Men’s Health, the actor’s new approach includes “a new awareness of injury” in his post-Baywatch life and a period of time during which he suffered injuries such as tearing an ACL, dislocating a shoulder, breaking his wrist, throwing out his back, and breaking his jaw, all of which were sustained while training.
I like truly setting it all out and pushing myself to the point where I almost have to do it, he added. I don’t feel like myself otherwise.