You can take the boy out of the high school musical, but you can never take the high school musical out of the boy. In this case, our boy is Zac Efron, who stars in the hefty new flick The Iron Claw. Efron recently revealed during a Q&A at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences that his fellow jacked-up costars decided to loosen up the mood on set by singing some classic tunes.
The Iron Claw star Stanley Simons started singing High School Musical songs while the crew was filming a party scene. Simmons explained, “I sung [some of ‘Breaking Free’] to Zac when I was playing my music scene. That was definitely a life experience that I’ll never forget,” Simmons confessed, though Efron wasn’t super impressed with the singing. “When I was singing the song, he was like, ‘Oh, you’re not hitting it, you’re not hitting it.’ I was like, ‘Oh,’ and I redid it. And I think I did a good job!” he added. He should have sung “Get Your Head In The Game” but that’s not his fault since it’s more of an ensemble track.
Efron chimed in, “Goddamn it, Stanley! I do remember that being one of the most fun days of filming that we had. Filming a house party could go one way or the other. It’s a lot of people that are stuck in one room for many days, it can be kind of daunting. But this one was just electric. It felt like a high school party in a really rad way. It was really special.”
The Iron Claw tells the triumphant and tragic story of the Von Erich family of wrestlers. Simons plays Mike, one of the five brothers in the wrestling family. “We really bonded and got to hang out,” Simons added at the event. “When we got on set it just felt natural. They were really welcoming to me, not just my brothers but all the cast members. So it was a little nerve-racking, but they just were very open.” Jeremy Allen White, Holt McCallany, Lily James, Maura Tierney, and Maxwell Jacob Friedman also star in the film.
It’s a shame that there will be no basketball musical numbers in the upcoming sports drama, but you’ll have to settle for some cool wrestling moves and embarrassing hairstyles. It was the ’80s!
The Iron Claw arrives in theaters on December 22.
(Via EW)