Zac Efron

Zachary David Alexander Efron (ˈɛfrɒn; born October 18, 1987) is an American actor. He began acting professionally in the early 2000s and rose to prominence as a teen idol in the late 2000s for his leading role as Troy Bolton in the High School Musical trilogy (2006–2008). During this time, he also starred in the musical film Hairspray (2007) and the comedy film 17 Again (2009). Efron subsequently rose to mainstream prominence with 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). He played Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019). In 2021, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for the Netflix web documentary series Down to Earth with Zac Efron (2020–present). Efron 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, and 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, as well as that he was a class clown. 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. Efron graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 2006 and was then accepted into the University of Southern California but did not enroll.