Whoa.
You're really villaining out in here.
What's-- what's lame?
What's going on?
That's Pete talking to Teddy, but it might as well
have been Zac Efron's fan base talking to the actor himself
about his villainous turn on the 2014 comedy hit Neighbors.
And that's probably exactly what he
was hoping for because at the time, Efron had a problem
and oddly that problem was that he was just too damn likable.
She's a-- she's a little flirt.
Like her mom a bit.
Cool.
Zac Efron started his career making minor appearances
on shows like Firefly, ER, and the Guardian.
He finally earned himself a re-occurring role
on the 2004 WB drama Summerland, which was quickly
upgraded to a regular role in the second season
because the fans liked him so much.
The show was canceled after that season,
but it wouldn't be a major problem for Zac
because he was on the precipice of landing the part that
would elevate him to superstardom,
Troy Bolton in Kenny Ortega's 2006 Disney Channel movie
High School Musical.
Troy was a high school athlete and aspiring musical drama star
who fills a role in the plot that's
vaguely similar to the part of Danny in Grease
if Danny were a popular basketball star.
He's also the male lead of a Disney film aimed at tweens,
so you can bet he's as clean as an operating table
and as wholesome as Coca-Cola and apple pie.
High School Musical was, of course, a smash hit,
literally the most commercially successful movie
that the Disney Channel ever produced.
It earns two equals, both starring Efron,
and the last entry in that trilogy
was released theatrically, earning nearly $253 million.
The success was great for Efron's career.
He got to star as Link Larkin in 2007's Hairspray,
play a young Matthew Perry in 2009's 17 Again,
but at the same time, most of the parts he was getting
were still trading off the wholesome likability
of Troy Bolton.
My prom is wherever you are.
Efron was being typecast and in roles that were
sure to dry up as he got older.
Maybe because it's something that
happens to every child and teen actor eventually,
but Efron seemed to be aware of the danger.
He dropped out of what would become 2011's Footloose remake,
which many speculated was because the part was too
similar to Troy Bolton, and starting around 2012,
he began turning up in more eclectic and decidedly more
adult mix of films including stuff
like At Any Price, Parkland, and The Paper Boy.
But Efron's tween safe performance
as the preppy Troy Bolton was cemented in the public mind.
It was pretty much impossible for most people
to think of him as anything but an overachieving Disney Channel
star with an almost comically sculpted physique.
As a result, he would try the same thing many in his spot
had tried before, playing against type,
and while Efron himself has denied
making a conscious decision to change
his image, in the same breath, he added that--
I don't think there's a choice.
I mean, what am I supposed to do?
I'm going to get old.
So he wasn't choosing to, but he was doing it.
The results of such experiments, however, vary widely.
For every successful example like Kurt Russell
in Escape from New York or Bruce Willis in Die Hard,
there are notorious strikeouts like Elizabeth Berkley
in Showgirls and Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son.
Still, if Efron was going to avoid
playing increasingly old and decreasingly relevant
clones of Troy Bolton for the rest of his career,
he had to make a move, and that move
turned out to be playing Teddy in Neighbors.
Neighbors is primarily the story of Mac
and Kelly Radnor played by Seth Rogen
and Rose Byrne, a married couple with a newborn baby girl.
The responsibility and structured life
that comes along with being parents
has choked the spontaneity out of their relationship,
and they fear that their turning into the worst thing they can
possibly imagine, old people.
As if on cue, the Delta Psi Beta fraternity moves in next door,
and the couple quickly find themselves
at odds with a guy who is pretty much the personification
of the very freewheeling youthful irresponsibility
and irreverence that they miss so badly.
That guy is Efron's Teddy, and as the chapter president,
he realizes that the couple next door could make trouble
for Delta Psi, so he pours on the charm.
How's it going?
Are you our new neighbors?
We're your new neighbors.
Yes.
All right.
But after Mack and Kelly break a promise
by making a noise complaint to the police,
Teddy turns extremely spiteful, unusually fast.
Hey, everyone.
So if you've been a fan of this channel for a while,
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But like anything legendary, these adventures
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so you got to make sure you prepare.
The next legendary adventure event is starting June 26th,
so make sure you collect five elven characters in order
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But even if you miss the event, there
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So download Lord of the Rings--
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You won't regret it.
And now back to the video.
At first, this just takes the form of petty harassment.
The frat essentially hazes the couple
by doing stuff like leaving garbage on their lawn
but the conflict escalates quickly
and Teddy becomes increasingly obsessed with Mac and Kelly.
He eventually begins to give off a dark stalkery vibe,
and the movie even finds an excuse
to dress him as Travis Bickle, the dangerous sociopath played
by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's 1976 classic Taxi
Driver.
But, of course, given the tone of the film,
Teddy doesn't really turn out to be Travis Bickle.
He is merely, as Efron describes him, a douche,
and his antics are always played for laughs.
It worked so well because Teddy is in many ways
sort of like Troy Bolton's petty, spiteful, manipulative,
violent twin.
When we look at him, we see what we
imagine the college-aged version of the High School Musical hero
might look like.
It's genuinely shocking every time he
does something underhanded, and that resemblance
wasn't an accident.
According to co-star Seth Rogen, Efron
was actually very self-deprecating
and had a great deal of awareness
about how he was perceived.
It's a characterization echoed by director Nicholas Stoller
who found Efron had a great sense of humor
about his public persona.
But regardless of how game he was,
it was legitimately a risky role for Efron.
Had it not landed well with the public,
it could have not only signaled Hollywood
that he wasn't marketable as anything but a hunky nice guy,
but it could even damage his ability
to return to those hunky nice guy roles if he felt he had to.
Luckily, for Efron, Neighbors was a massive success.
Even more astounding is that the gross out
comedy holds a respectable 73% critical score
on Rotten Tomatoes.
And many of those critics specifically
called out the unlikely depth Efron brought to his character
and commented about the contrast the part made
with his clean cut image.
Efron won two MTV Movie Awards for Neighbors,
one for Best Onscreen Duo with Dave Franco
and one for Best Shirtless Performance.
So they're not exactly Oscars, but that wasn't really
the point.
He had shown studios that audiences
would accept him playing more complex and less wholesome
characters than the all-American pretty boys
he had mostly been confined to in the past.
He also had shown he could hold his own on screen
against the likes of Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, and Ike
Barinholtz in an adult comedy.
We're a great team.
Thanks.
You make the store more approachable.
What does that mean?
And many of his subsequent roles were also
in comedies like Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Baywatch,
and Neighbors 2--
Sorority Rising.
He also turned up in dramas like 2015's We
Are Your Friends, 2022's Gold, and, of course,
Netflix's 2019 film Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil
and Vile in which he played the notorious serial killer Ted
Bundy.
The movie itself drew mixed reviews, but Efron drew
raves from his performance as Bundy.
According to director Joe Berlinger,
Bundy used his good looks and trustworthy appearance
to lure his victims to their deaths.
He cast Efron because he knew the young people
he was making the film for knew and trusted his appearance.
The juxtaposition of Efron's wholesome appeal
against the darkness of the character
isn't all that different from how he was used in Neighbors.
In fact, there's arguably a direct line
between the comedically dark mirror of Troy Bolton
that Efron played in Neighbors and the real life serial killer
he played in Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile.
The truth is most of us aren't Troy Bolton,
and while there's nothing inherently
wrong with tween targeted programming,
people fundamentally crave stories
about characters who give us a glimpse at their dark side.
It gives them dimension and makes them more relatable.
Audiences are happy to accept Efron
in complex roles like that now, and it's pretty much all
thanks to Neighbors.
And while some of the films he's done since
have been more successful than others, what's
most important to note is that none
of them under any circumstances would ever be confused
with a Disney Channel movie.
So what do you think?
Are you a fan of Zac Efron, and what
do you think of his turn in Neighbors?
Let us down in the comments below.
And if you enjoyed this video, you'll
definitely find others you'll like if you check out
the rest of the channel.
As always, thank you for subscribing to Nerdstalgic.