Report: Zac Efron Steps Out of Footloose; Wants Adult Roles
Zac Efron
Zac Efron has reportedly cut loose from Footloose, TheWrap.com reports.
The High School Musical graduate exited the remake of the Kevin Bacon-led '80s classic because he felt another song-and-dance flick could thwart his transition into adult roles — which means he's looking for non-musicals. Efron had script approval on the movie and dismissed the latest rewrite last week, a member of the production told the site.
TVGuide.com's calls to Paramount were not immediately returned.
Efron, who also has 2007's Hairspray under his belt, can next be seen in April's family-friendly 17 Again, in which he plays a despondent 37-year-old who gets the chance to rewrite his life when he wakes up as a 17-year-old.
"The whole idea of playing a 37-year-old guy as a 17-year-old was just the most exciting prospect for me," Efron told Gus Van Sant in Interview magazine. "I was really intrigued by the idea. I've always been kind of an old man, so to speak."
Perhaps trying to let everyone know he is, in fact, all grown up, Efron posed with a naked woman (not Vanessa Hudgens) in the same issue. He also told Elle that his mom bought him an economy pack of condoms for Christmas.
The 21-year-old, who performed a medley ode to movie musicals at last month's Academy Awards, will get to show his serious side later this year in Me and Orson Welles. Based on the Robert Kaplow novel of the same name, Efron plays, yet again, a 17-year-old who gets hired by Orson Welles in 1937 to star in a Broadway production of Julius Caesar. Should we start engraving the Oscar now?