I really drilled all those shots, there's no CGI in there, I don't think we had to see the budget for that.

That makes it 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 going to be pretty visceral, but some of them are probably going to be really fun, I have no idea.

Alright, here we go.

♪

What are you, what are you wearing? What are you doing?

We're throwing a Robert De Niro party.

Oh.

Should be pretty fucking loud, it's probably going to go pretty fucking late too.

I'm a taxi driver De Niro.

Yeah, I meet the fuck as De Niro.

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

That's dead on.

Did you do that yourself?

Yes, I did.

Yes, I did, fucker.

Oh my god, that's so funny.

Um, 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 going to be winging it, and hopefully betting on the fact that the worse it was, the funnier it would be.

And it worked out.

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.

Are you talking to me?

He literally looks like him.

He looks like De Niro.

So I'm here, like, up front sucking, doing taxi De Niro, and then he comes out and says, yeah, you, fucker, 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.

Who are you?

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

What the fuck?

Hooah!

Hooah!

Hooah!

Hooah!

That's not even, yeah.

Scent of a woman?

Hooah!

Hooah!

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 hooah, hooah, like, that's not even De Niro.

That's Pacino.

I don't remember who did it first, but someone did it, and we all just started copying it.

And Seth's reaction to it was very genuine.

It was like, that's not even, you guys, it's not even an impression, and we just kept doing it to make him upset because it was making him mad, and it stayed in.

That'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 crazy.

I 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.

I really don't.

♪♪ ♪ Coach said to fake right and break left ♪ ♪ Watch out for the pick and keep an eye on the fence ♪ ♪ Gotta run the give and go, take the ball to the hole ♪ ♪ And don't be afraid to shoot the outside, Jay ♪

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 to see 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 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, Chuck, he was 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 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 have 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 going to be cool?

It felt really cool.

It was a really special moment, and I'm still just proud of all those guys for doing that because it was hard.

It was hard.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Oh, God.

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 kind of the shape of the scene that we had planned, but a lot of that stuff, we added our own, like, flavor to, 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.

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, and I don't think it's ever gonna change.

It's weird, 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 got to get past that initial, you're Nicole Kidman, and we're doing a scene together.

Okay, cool. Let's go.

electronic music plays

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.

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 Gracie.

I think Michael Gracie and Hugh, they're incredibly special people.

I think that Michael is such a visionary.

I can admit that 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 but also well-thought-out explanations of a story that I've ever experienced.

It's kind of similar to working with Sean Durkin on The Iron Claw.

It was very clear that Michael Gracie had this in his dreams, and he was going to bring to life a very vivid dream that meant something very special to him and was not one to compromise.

So if you're going to make a musical, you better make it damn good, and I felt like this was a chance to make it good.

Yeah, suddenly we're free to fly

We're going to the other side

So if you feel like it

You're going to the other side

So if you feel like it

You're 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, we had to catch them 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

Cary 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.

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 on a trapeze and then like went into her close-up, like a lot.

It was very impressive.

I mean, Zend'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 Zend.

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 weird.

Shawn Durkin, the director of this movie, was, 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.

I think it was for good reason.

Kevin Von Erich was never meant to be seen crying because the family was not allowed to show weakness.

And I thought that was a really fantastic note from Shawn 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 would just say, 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 going to have to do it again.

Like, Shawn's not going to go for this.

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 Shawn,

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 Shawn was happy.

It's a cool scene.

Well, thank you so much,

Vanity Fair.

Thank you for watching.