Zac Becomes a Man

He’s the object of affection for tweens everywhere, but in this month’s GQ, Zac Efron opens up about becoming a man (if you can call starring in 17 Again a rite of passage). He’s just turned 21 (and thought his friends would buy him booze, but they bought him books instead) and during his interview takes a walk through the dramatic canyons around Los Angeles. As the Disney God looks down at the city sprawling beneath him, he has a come-to-Jesus moment: “It’s crazy, all the stuff that happens down there,” he says. “It’s the American dream. I mean, it’s beautiful. But it’s so fucked-up.” Efron’s giving GQ what he knows it wants—and, of course, they’re in on the joke. Writes THE MAGAZINE: “He knows a career built almost exclusively on the squealing ardor of preteen girls, on choreographed dance numbers set to expository pop tuneage so perkily inoffensive it makes early ’NSync sound like Howlin’ Wolf, is something a man has to live down before you can, y’know, call him a man.”