By Fred Topel | Images property of New Line Cinema
17 Again
17 Again gives Zac Efron the best of both worlds, Hannah Montana style. He gets to play his adult self rejuvenated back to 17, so he’s playing a grown-up, but the kids still get to see a hottie in high school.
Zac Efron is 17 Again
“It was exactly what I was looking for,” Efron said. “This is an opportunity to work with a brilliant cast and an amazing director and it was that chance to switch it up. It does take place in high school, in a high school setting, but it’s not a very high school character and that’s what I want to do more of.”
Matthew Perry plays the grown-up version, so the actors modeled their performances after each other. “We went back and forth. I think it was all mixed up. Matthew shot a couple days and I’d come in and shoot. I was able to see a couple of scenes that Matt had done for sure, but I know that most of the work we did on figuring out the character was just done in rehearsals. We had a couple days where we were able to just hang out and talk and figure out the key moments that really it was Matthew’s line that I was just kind of saying.”
Efron gets hit a lot in the movie. In one scene he battles his best friend (Thomas Lennon) with sci-fi memorabilia. Later in the film, a series of women, and Lennon again, slaps him. “
17 Again
17 Again
“It was amazing watching everybody have so much fun that night. It was funny, it started slow and Tom was very nice about it. He was like, ‘There’s no way to fake a slap. We’re just going to have to go for it.’ And he did. He knew how to do it. We had a stunt coordinator that day who was instructing everyone how to slap and he goes, ‘You guys really got to sell it! You have to slap him!/ And I’m sitting there like they’re slapping me, bro’. The day I did hit Tom, there were a couple injuries, but I hit Tom pretty hard one day and I just thank God it was during rehearsals with the rehearsal light sabers because if we had been filming a real take, we’d use real light sabers. I’m pretty sure he would have had less face right now. The fun thing with Tom is we didn’t necessarily have to stick to what was written. We tried to, but it was virtually impossible with Tom.”
As for embodying a 37-year-old dad, Efron kept it in the family. “I thought about the way that my dad tried to have those talks with me and my little brother and he was always very passionate and energetic and he delivered it like a champ. Really. He was just really excited, I think. So that’s what came out during that particular scene in the movie.”
17 Again is out in theaters now.
For the trailers, posters, stills, review and more movie info, go to the 17 Again Movie Page.
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