Efron making a splash as Olympian turned lifeguard
As the disgraced Olympic champion who has to do community service as a lifeguard, Zac Efron takes off his shirt, flexes his muscles and dives right in to the new movie Baywatch, which opens here tomorrow.
At the Faena Hotel in Miami, even though he's in ripped jeans and T-shirt, it's easy to see why he is a teenage girl's idol. In addition to the good looks, there is a vulnerability he projects that's very appealing.
What type of training did you do for the character?
I wanted to be accurate and to look like an Olympic athlete, and so I started training like one. It was really, really hard.
I still continue to train but I'm not doing two or three a day workouts anymore. And I'm not eating exorbitant amounts of food.
Like your character in the film, have you had a moment that changed your life and made you who you are today?
I think I'm still waiting for that moment. I think if you're really living your life to the fullest, not that you ever really reach your peak, you can be tested and fail, and you learn and become stronger from it... You can do anything.
How did you get on with Johnson?
He's perfect in every way. Alexandra (Daddario) said that in San Andreas (2015), she had to be resuscitated by Dwayne, and she said, even his breath was like breathing pure air, cleaner air than the atmosphere.
Dwayne's got a great sense of humour. He's a guy's guy but he's also just a good person and good to be around.
Were the swimsuit discussions intense, and how many did you try on.
It's surprising how complicated it is to make a versatile bathing suit that you can actually swim in, and then do scenes in.
The costume department hand-made the board shorts. And every pair was a little different.
The tighter pair was for when you're swimming, because if you were wearing the wrong board shorts, they would be floating next to you.
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