Interview

VAN SANT: But before that you have 17 Again.

EFRON: Yeah, I’m getting ready for that.

VAN SANT: Your character in the film is 37 years old, and you’re playing him as a 17-year-old. What was it like playing somebody so much older?

EFRON: At the time, it was the most unique opportunity that presented itself. There were several roles that I could have done where I would have played essentially another high school student, or they were romances or stories in a high school setting, and there were lots of things that people wanted to turn into musicals. But the whole idea of playing a 37-year-old guy as a 17-year-old was just the most exciting prospect for me. I was really intrigued by the idea. I’ve always been kind of an old man, so to speak.

VAN SANT: Was there something that you needed to do, some technique, in order to actually pull that off?

EFRON: Well, I couldn’t really relate to the character in a lot of ways, so I didn’t have that to work from. I worked a lot with Burr [Steers], the director, and Matthew [Perry], and just tried to think in terms of an older guy. He’s experienced life. He’s been through a lot that I haven’t been through yet. So it was a big change from High School Musical. You know, I’ve fallen in love, and I’ve not known what I want to do with my own future—I still don’t know. But I’ve never had a daughter who I’m looking out for. I’ve never been proud of my son. I’ve never gotten a divorce. It was interesting trying to figure that out. It was definitely a change of pace. And it was great working with Burr, because he’s got this huge imagination, and this sense of people—not what they seem to be, or what they’re defined to be, or what they want to appear to be, but as they actually are.

VAN SANT: And how old is Burr Steers?

EFRON: Oh, I’m not sure exactly.

VAN SANT: He’s not 37 years old, is he?

EFRON: Something like that. [Ed note: Steers is 43.]

VAN SANT: Oh, really?

EFRON: He knows a little bit more about what the character was going through.

VAN SANT: I wanted to ask you about video games.

EFRON: Oh, sure.

VAN SANT: Because there’s one that I used to play called Tomb Raider. Did you ever play that?

EFRON: Oh, yeah. Definitely.

VAN SANT: Is it something that people still play?

EFRON: Tomb Raider? Tomb Raider is more movie-franchise material now. Games today are a lot more fast-paced. I think at the time of Tomb Raider I was playing, like, The Legend of Zelda or something like that. That was a couple of generations ago. Now the games are a lot more about first-person shooters and strategy. They will completely blow your mind.

VAN SANT: The reason I know about Tomb Raider is from when I was researching Elephant. It was 1999, and I was trying to research the Columbine-massacre kids, and they had played video games, and I, at the time, had never really seen one. It was a world I didn’t know. And so a friend of mine just said, “We’ll just go on your computer and we can actually download a level of a game.” And the thing we downloaded was Tomb Raider. It was, like, an introductory level so you could see what the game was like. I played that for a couple of days, and I finally got the full game. But another game that I’ve played, that I think you’ve played, is Medal of Honor. That’s a hard game.

EFRON: Oh, it’s definitely a hard game. You should try Call of Duty if you ever get a chance.

VAN SANT: Is that by the same people?

EFRON: It’s just an updated, more well-rounded . . . It’s just the latest and greatest.

VAN SANT: In Medal of Honor, I developed a technique where I would try to pick off the opposition by calling up this scope and shooting from really far away. If I were going into a building or something, then I would just pick off as many people as I could before I entered.

EFRON: I always prefer that approach, too. I’m methodical—one shot, one kill. You know?

VAN SANT: Yeah. You save bullets.

EFRON: Exactly.