Zac Efron:The High School Hunk(Article)

If you're a fan of Zac Efron from his work on High School Musical or Hairspray, then I've got some very good news for you.

He's a really nice guy.

Unlike most cute teen idols who take the news that young girls find them attractive as a license to behave like ill-bred jerks, Efron has a refreshing honesty and a disarming modesty that put him light years ahead of his competitors.

"I could show you 500 kids in L.A.," he says, stretching out on a sofa in a suite at the Hyatt during his recent stay in Toronto, "who are my height, weight, hair colour and age. We're a dime a dozen. Why did I get the parts I did? Who knows? But the minute I start thinking it's because I was special, that's when I know I'm in trouble."

Efron didn't begin in a show business family – far from it.

He was born Oct. 18, 1987, in San Luis Obispo, Calif., to a father who worked as a power plant engineer and a mother who was a secretary at the same plant.

"I lived a normal childhood in a middle-class family," Efron insists.

"When I was younger, I didn't even know this business existed."

It was Efron's dad who first sensed his son's talent in the acting world and encouraged him to do high school musicals like many other kids. For a while, it was like any normal scenario where the talented son impresses family and friends with his accomplishments.

But later on, professional agents started noticing the nice young man, with the bangs falling over his forehead, who was able to bewitch the women in any audience. Still, Efron admits, "I was 18 before it became a business with me," and high-powered agents swept in to make the California kid a worldwide star.

It's fascinating now, as thousands of screaming girls go crazy over Efron, that he looks back on the time only a few years ago when, "I wasn't a hot commodity. I was a regular dude. I had to chase chicks – they didn't chase me."

Now that the paparazzi surround Efron on a daily basis, he's anxious to affirm that "photos are just a frame of your life; they don't represent what kind of a person you are."

The successful movie version of Hairspray currently has Efron in the public eye as its appealing romantic lead, Link Larkin, which he describes as "a once-in-a-lifetime role.

"I love watching the guys who bring the cool into the story."

He also appreciates the way that "Link is all about the way that other people think and Tracy is about being true to yourself."

But while Hairspray is of major importance to Efron's career, there's no doubt in anyone's mind that his performance as jock-turned-song-and-dance-dude Troy Bolton in the phenomenon known as High School Musical made him a giant star.

And the enormous hype surrounding what was meant to be a throwaway entry on the Family Channel has probably proved to be the strangest thing of all to Efron.

"We made the movie with low expectations," he now admits. "And, initially, there was no phenomenon.

"But after we signed the contracts for the second movie, suddenly, pandemonium broke loose and there we were on Good Morning, America."

One of the amazing things about Efron is that, even when being caught in the middle of a media firestorm like the one that surrounded High School Musical, he's able to maintain a mature and valuable perspective.

"It wasn't the hype that made the movie," he insists, "it was the fans who took control. That's what I love."

But, by now, all of this is in the past and everyone is looking forward to High School Musical 2, which makes its debut at 8 p.m. on Aug. 17 on Disney's Family Channel.

"It's a blast," says Efron, "and it all takes place over summer vacation. It's a lot sexier than the first. If that one was Grease, then this one is Dirty Dancing. More romance, more summer lovin', more of the juicy stuff."

Toronto means all of that for Efron as well, because it was here that "I felt like I really became an adult, a man."

He smiles shyly as he admits "this was the place where I first struck out on my own.

"When we'd have a day off from Hairspray, I'd put on my backpack and set out to discover this city. I'd just walk all day. That's what Toronto is to me: Freedom."

Right now, Efron admits, "I'm one lucky guy to have landed in such awesome projects."

But he's also happy abut the success of High School Musical and Hairspray for another reason: "They tell kids that what's really important in life is following your dreams and truly being yourself."

Efron flashes his million-dollar smile as he brushes his trademark bangs to the side.

"Hey, if it happened to me, then, man, it can happen to anybody."

1. What was your first job?

"I worked in a theatre called The Melodrama in Oceana, Calif. The kind of place where the audience threw peanuts on the floor."

2. What's on your iPod?

"'Hey There, Delilah' from the Plain White T's. It wrecks me every time I hear it."

3. If you weren't an actor, what would you be doing?

"I'd be a college student. That's what I was raised to be."

4. What's the last good movie you saw?

"300 ... It was a new idea, a new genre, a whole new type of film. It was a man's movie and I thought it was amazing."

5. What TV show must you watch/record every week?

"Lost ... the whole concept of being lost on a desert island has always intrigued me."

-Richard Ouzounian