Zac Efron’s father "tricked" him into becoming an actor.
The ‘Baywatch’ actor was taken to an open audition for a play when he was just 11 years old because his parents thought he had what it took to be a star, but he thought they were just going on an outing to a toy shop and completely "lost it" when told what was really going to happen.
He said: "I kind of got tricked into it to be honest. My dad took me to Toys R Us, we never went to Toys R Us this was a big deal.
"I should have known something was up. But we showed up and right next to Toys R Us was a place they were holding auditions for casting for a play, and he goes ‘We are not going to Toys R Us’. I was like ‘What?’ He was like ‘Yeah. We’ve listened to you sing and dance and stuff and do you to audition for this play’. I went white, absolutely white, I totally lost it, I lost all courage, confidence.
"I’ve never been more scared in my entire life, I was crying. My dad nudged me on, he said ‘ You can do it, you just need to break through this barrier. It’s a minute, it’s just a moment in time and we will see what happens.’ "
Zac, now 29, broke down in tears and cried throughout the whole audition, but still managed to get the part.
And after working on the show with older and more experienced actors, the hunky star realised he’d finally found his true passion in life.
Speaking in a Facebook live Q&A with Hugo Boss, he said: "It was a relatively professional production. I got to miss some school and working with college-aged kids, and I was around experts in their fields.
"Every night, and we did like eight shows a week, the show was ‘Gypsy’ … and I had finally found what I loved. I was too small for basketball, I was the shortest kid in school, I couldn’t play baseball because I was too small, and I found my niche."
Though the ‘High School Musical’ star was mocked for his love of acting in school after that, he insists he didn’t mind because he liked being "different".
He said: "It was in this weird thing that people made fun of. And I got little jabs at school like ‘This is the actor kid, what a geek.’ I just kind of dug it, I dug that I was different."
Zac Efron ‘tricked’ into acting
