Zac Efron

On Dwayne, diets and duos …

Is there a conflict between your character, Matt Brody, and Dwayne Johnson’s Mitch Buchannon?

Well, at the beginning, they do not get along. And I think we looked at a lot of great action duos in the past like Lethal Weapon and 48 Hours. Brody enters this movie extremely cocky, he’s just won two gold medals at the Olympics, so he’s pretty high on himself.

What kind of training do you do to get into Baywatch shape?

It was a lot more cardio than you would expect, so it was the style of training and keeping up with it every day, along with a dramatic diet change. I had to cut out virtually every sort of processed food. It’s literally become a part of the day now: training has to fit in somewhere. [ laughs]

What have you learned from working with Dwayne?

Well, I think I’ve been really lucky to have him as a guide on this movie because I get to watch what he does and emulate it. Dwayne is a machine. He loves to work but he’s also a great leader on set.

Do you train with him?

We haven’t really trained together. We do, like, pumping up together. [ laughs] It’s like before takes you do pushups and pullups before shirtless stuff and we do that stuff together. He eats extraordinary amounts of calories. I have no idea how he does it. I don’t know how he’s not chewing while we’re filming. [ laughs]

Did you watch Baywatch on TV?

I was very young when the original Baywatch was on… I just recently went back and started watching the first season and [ key episodes]. The ocean scenes are no joke on the show. It’s really amazing what they did. I got to tell everybody: “This is cool. You should really check this out.” JCC