Zac Efron tones up his decks appeal
But if you think the former High School Musical star is shaking off his clean-cut image and getting a bit naughty, you’d be mistaken.
The 27-year-old actor acquired a few tricks of the music-making trade to portray an aspiring DJ in his new film, We Are Your Friends, and he’s keen to show off his knowledge.
“I have DJ’d before. I haven’t done it properly, I’ve had a lot of help,” he explains. “There’s definitely a lot of buttons and a lot of knobs, but once you get the hang of it and you spend enough time on that deck, you’re going to get a kick out of it.
“I can do it as long as there’s somebody there, watching over my shoulder. I would say I’m proficient at it, but by no means am I going to be headlining any wrap parties or anything like that. I cannot produce anything but I can play a little set – we are all great iPhone DJs!”
California-born Efron trained with Swedish DJ Alesso and Los Angeles-based DJ and producer Jason Stewart, known as Them Jeans.
“DJing is hard, definitely much harder than I thought it would be. It’s truly an art form. I got decks so I could practice at home. Put away the video games and just spin. It was probably pretty annoying for my neighbours, but luckily I have cool neighbours.”
His role in We Are Your Friends marks a bit of a departure for the actor. This time, his chiselled good looks and hunky physique put him at a slight disadvantage for the part in Max Joseph’s directorial debut.
The director, better recognised as Nev Schulman’s sidekick in Catfish: The TV Show, has admitted: “When I first met Zac, he was big and buff from doing Bad Neighbours. I explained to him that most DJs don’t eat well and spend all night long at their computers, not sleeping. And they don’t have perfect tans because they’re not out in the sun.”
Efron, who is dating model Sami Miro, shed almost 20lbs before filming started in June 2014. Today, the star looks in pretty good shape. “It was fun to go backwards and play a DJ and more skinny, svelte guy,” he says. “Max and I talked about that the weight loss early on. I guess to be more authentic, I was running a lot, so I just let it happen naturally.”
We Are Your Friends follows his character, Cole, who is on a quest to find the one track that will give him a hit, which leads him to question his life and friendships along the way.
#WAYFtour mission complete. Stoked for you all to see this movie! #WAYF #aug28 😜 pic.twitter.com/a9sPzGlrvB
— Zac Efron (@ZacEfron) August 22, 2015
While they filmed at parties and raves around Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the stars were too busy to enjoy any bonding nights out. Efron has been sober since 2013, when he entered rehab to seek treatment for alcoholism and substance abuse.
Although he refrains from revealing the content of his playlists, he admits music is a big part of his own life. “It’s really a uniting force and a DJ is the person who is at the helm of that, which is really cool. We’re definitely all music people. Somebody was always blasting music in our base camp,” he recalls.
Efron is now back in gym mode, in preparation for reprising his role as Teddy Sanders in the Bad Neighbours sequel, due out next year.
Beefing up will come in handy when he starts filming for the planned Baywatch movie too, alongside Dwayne ’The Rock’ Johnson.
We Are Your Friends opens in cinemas today
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