Zac Efron

Zachary David Alexander Efron (born October 18, 1987) is an American actor.

Zachary David Alexander Efron was born on October 18, 1987, and grew up in Arroyo Grande, California.

His father, David Efron, is an electrical engineer at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, and his mother, Starla Baskett, is an administrative assistant who also works at Diablo Canyon.

Efron has a younger brother, Dylan, and a younger paternal half-sister, Olivia, and had, as he has described, a "normal childhood" in a middle-class family.

His surname originates from Hebrew.

His paternal grandfather is Jewish.

Efron has described himself as Jewish, though he was raised agnostically and did not practice religion as a child.

He has said that he would "flip out" if he got a "B" and not an "A" in school, and was a class clown there.

Efron subsequently worked in the theater The Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville, and began taking singing lessons.

He performed in shows such as Gypsy; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up; Little Shop of Horrors; and The Music Man.

He was recommended to an agent in Los Angeles by his drama teacher, Robyn Metchik, the mother of actor Aaron Michael Metchik.

Efron was later signed to the Creative Artists Agency.

He began acting professionally in the early 2000s and rose to prominence as a teen idol for his leading role as Troy Bolton in the High School Musical trilogy (2006–2008).

He also attended Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, a theatre company operating out of Allan Hancock College, a community college located in Santa Maria, California, where he performed in 2000 and 2001.

Efron began acting in the early 2000s with guest roles on several television series including Firefly, ER, and The Guardian.

In 2004, he began appearing as a recurring character in the first season of the WB series Summerland.

He also appeared in some films, including the Lifetime television film Miracle Run (2004), for which he earned a Young Artist Award nomination for his performance as one of two autistic twins.

For the show's second season, which aired in 2005, he was promoted to the main cast.

Efron graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 2006 and was then accepted into the University of Southern California but did not enroll.

Efron's career reached a turning point with the teen musical television film High School Musical (2006), which premiered on the Disney Channel in January 2006.

The film, which has been described as a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, saw Efron playing the male lead Troy Bolton, a high school basketball player who feels conflicted when he finds himself interested in participating in the school musical with Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens), a girl from the scholastic decathlon team.

The film became a major success and helped Efron gain recognition among teenage audiences.

The film's soundtrack was certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA, and was one of the best-selling albums of the year in the United States.

However, Efron's recordings of the film's songs were not included in the final cut, and the majority of his parts were sung by Drew Seeley; the Troy Bolton role had been intended for a tenor before Efron's casting and Efron was a baritone.

In his subsequent musical films, Efron did his own singing.

During this time, he also starred in the musical film Hairspray (2007) and the comedy film 17 Again (2009).

Efron was next seen as Link Larkin in the musical comedy film Hairspray (2007), based on the 2002 Broadway musical of the same name.

Production conflicted with the High School Musical concert tour, which prevented Efron from joining; Drew Seeley filled in.

The film became a major commercial and critical success upon its release in July 2007.

Later that year, he reprised his role of Troy Bolton in High School Musical 2 (2007), which aired on the Disney Channel in August 2007.

Efron again reprised his role in High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008), the first film in the High School Musical franchise to receive a theatrical release.

The film became a major blockbuster at the box office, and received mixed to positive reviews from critics.

Efron's next release was Richard Linklater's period drama Me and Orson Welles, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2008 and received a wide release in late 2009.

The film earned mostly positive reviews from critics.

He followed this with the commercially successful comedy 17 Again (2009) about a 37-year-old man who is transformed into his 17-year-old self (Efron) after a chance accident.

He then played the title role in the supernatural romantic drama Charlie St. Cloud (2010), which became a moderate success at the box office despite receiving mostly negative reviews from critics.

Efron had starring roles in the films New Year's Eve (2011), The Lucky One (2012), The Paperboy (2012), Neighbors (2014), Dirty Grandpa (2016), Baywatch (2017), and The Greatest Showman (2017).

Efron appeared as a part of the large ensemble cast in Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve (2011), which depicted a series of holiday vignettes of different groups of characters.

He played Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019) and Kevin Von Erich in The Iron Claw (2023).

In 2021, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for hosting the Netflix travel show Down to Earth with Zac Efron (2020–2022).