Zac Efron on Wrestling in The Iron Claw, Going Home for Christmas & His Play Mishap at 13 Years Old

our first guest tonight is a talented former teen heartthrob now adult heartthrob who squeezes into spandex in the new movie the iron claw and a devastating shot to the lower back puts Kevin on the mat he's lining up a big shot and drops it and returns a punch and it's FL twice and three times get racing in pretty hard on M coming off the ropes for the CL line the CH doesn't K it again off the ROP the iron CLW over the theaters a week from Friday say hello to Zack [Applause] Efron how's it going man I was worried I was worried you're going to come out here and throw me over the ropes can I ask you a quick question before we get into the interview um when people show up with um High School Musical paraphernalia is that appreciated yes or no oh man it's always appreciated it's appreciated okay awesome go wild C you um man you got huge for this movie huh yeah I did a lot of push-ups and Jeremy Allen White was here he said he was embarrassed standing next to you because he seemed really small he felt he was very muscular and very fit and then he'd stand next to you and he felt like he was you know a waiter or something maybe not in those exact words but you get the idea that's so funny man yeah so I mean like the story is all all about these brothers and and it really was you know about about their bond and the von Eric family the von Eric family right and their dad their dad who was a wrestler of note and then I remember these guy I mean you probably too young to remember these guys but I remember Carrie von Eric Kevin von Eric these guys were like yeah it was a big wrestling one of those wrestling families yeah long line of wrestlers their father was a wrestler and um you know it's it's it's really an amazing story they Rose to fame so quickly and really changed the whole uh platform of wrestling I mean they took it to levels that nobody really had ever seen before they also had really really tough lives in general yeah the whole family was followed by sort of a curse yeah but it did seem like that or there was something like that going on yeah now this is um which one's the real family which one's you guys CU it's hard to tell you guys are in color that's how we know yeah and now you play Kevin von Eric um who's surviving member of the family has he seen the movie he has he has seen the movie and what did he think of the movie dude he loved it he loved it he loved it which meant just everything to me man I bet were you sitting there watching him while he watched the movie no no that would have been weird man it was awkward enough just sitting knowing he was in the room but uh yeah naturally when you're playing somebody real it's like that's that's the first thing you think of is what are they going to think of this yeah sometimes you don't care because that person is a villain or you know is eating people or something like that yeah yeah or like Ted Bundy or something like that yeah right yeah um when we showed up actually to the Premiere which was in Dallas uh where a lot of the story takes place he was there with his whole family and we had like a one-on-one shat did you fight did you guys have fight wouldn't that be cool no but you could have gone that way oh man I was ready for him to be like dude you messed that up what was it like getting in that ring for the first time I don't even know how to put it into words man it's like you sign on to play a wrestler you know you're you're in for a bit of a I don't know magic mic scenario kind of um but there's the moment that it becomes real and you're out there in front of a huge audience um so you oh so those people were really there yeah a lot of them were real you know big wrestling fans right um but you know the the the way we shot the film we did like really long takes so we'd shoot the whole wrestling sequence kind of at the same time so the matches could be anywhere from like 10 to 15 minutes long and we would the whole thing start to finish so you would like emerge see the crowd but then kind of get into the action of the wrestling and that was all fine but then inevitably they call cut you know and then you're kind of just standing there looking around in your underwear and you're like oiled up and you're like you don't like honestly you trying to figure out what to do after they call cut and you don't have the character to rely on or like someone to fight it's like you don't know how to stand man like do cross your legs and lean on the on the ring it was it was uh everywhere you look everyone's already looking at you yeah you know you're it's uh yeah it was awkward it's weird the whole thing is weird yeah it was weird and it's physically demanding also having to do those takes over and over again I would think because the wrestlers do it once and if they screw it up they just try again in the next town yeah yeah a little bit you know we got to work with so many great pro wrestlers on this and that was one of the things that uh that they noticed and and talked about they're like man we don't do it this much actually you guys have you do this a lot you do a lot of takes man you've been doing like live performance stuff though since you were a little kid right what was the first thing you did like the first real show oh man I just uh one of the earlier ones I did was Peter Pan that was that was were you Peter Pan no I wasn't Peter Pan uh I was uh John oh his little brother yeah yeah oh no not brother and yeah Wendy's little brother and um how old are you at this time man I must have been 13 14 something like that but it was a professional production at pcpa Allen Hancock College and um you know we had the Christmas show was it's pretty big but to be a to be a kid in one of those shows is a kind of a big deal it was like you know there's only a couple young people in it it's all college students good actors and stuff um but we had fly lines so we would they would actually pick us up into the air and fly us over the audience that's fun and every once in a while that would just go oh it would uh like one of the stunts we had was my younger brother Michael he would drop his teddy bear into the audience and um then I would go down and and retrieve it from whatever audience member caught it and one day a lady grabbed it I think it was like the senior's uh senior show where they get like a discount um so everybody was kind of old and this lady got the bear and she did not want to let go and so I swooped down to grab it and I couldn't really get it from her and she was kind of like no no and I was like uh I don't know what to do I'm about to get I'm about to fly away so I kind of reached for it one more time um and she just pulled me in like she like grabbed me like no and I got yanked into her and then the fly line guys yanked and I kind of flew away and when I flew away I wasn't holding a teddy bear I was holding like her hair her whip wow wow well she I hope she learned a valuable Lon on that day I will never know Z Evon is here his movie is the iron flaw look at that Bo hey we're back with young Zack Efron has got a movie called the ironclaw opening on on uh December 22nd in the movie theaters uh on Monday you got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame outside what does that mean to you like what is that is that a meaningful thing to you oh I mean I there's it's it's tough to describe man I I wasn't prepared for uh for the actual ceremony it was such a special day who spoke at the ceremony oh geez Miles Teller um which was awesome man he'd like shut it down it was so nice to hear him talk he's such a funny dude man shout out to Miles thanks for that um Jer Jeremy also spoke gave a beautiful speech Jeremy Al White your co-star yep Samy Ellen White and uh sha Durkin the director of ironclaw very nice nice your whole family there and my yeah my whole family was there man it was great what did your mother think of the whole thing oh I think she was pretty stoked she was pretty happy I mean she she's the one that like drove me down to LA and like the back of her I would be in the back of her minivan like studying for the ATS and she drive for like 3 hours from Royal Grande just to get me down for auditions wow uh so the amount of work they put in and uh had you as a kid come down here and looked at those stars and fantasized that maybe one day you'd be pulling wigs off old ladies in I mean I I looked at the stars I can't say I fantas I just seemed too far from something that would possibility you know to uh to actually get one but yeah man I I I spent a lot of time on those Stars I used to skateboard over them because it's really smooth on that sidewalk oh really yeah I I like broke my wrist somewhere out there on my skateboard like right next to it was like Betty White something I remember I was like smashed yeah right there was right next to one of those stores with all the fake Academy Awards in there yeah yeah oh yeah there's yeah there's a lot of them yeah yeah yeah there was like Spider-Man right there it was what are you going to do for uh for the holidays you have a family plan what's the plan yeah the probably the usual man I love to go um it's it's really the the one time of year that I know I'm not going to be busy and there's no uh you know there's no like work going on or press so I just like to go chill with the family man yeah I mean I love you know maybe we could work out together over the break we can you know show you some stuff he could show me some of your stuff or whatever you know yeah just really get jacked you know what I'm saying sure man I I plan on just eating a ton of yeah a ton of cookies all right yeah cuz you don't have to worry about that now right no I don't give a you have your shopping done uh a little bit I've got some good ideas here you have some good ideas all right and you have to get a gift for everyone I would assume in your family yeah I'd like to do that now did they give you good stuff uh you know what my parents my parents Crush they growing up they do oh growing yeah growing up um you know now they get me more sentimental stuff like I like I like pictures of all of us together and things like that oh that's nice yeah yeah but it's uh it's still fun to I have a you know little brother and sister now so they're four and four and two oh wow and um wow it's really fun to to get them stuff yeah yeah that's that's Primo age right there yeah Santa is like coming extra hard yeah wait till they see High School Musical they're going to lose their minds I know where we could get you a deal on a plastic purse you know what well it's great to see you congratulations on the movie It's called The Iron Claw it opens the theaters December 22nd Zack Efron everybody Jas man zus the

Channel: Jimmy Kimmel Live

Views: 550,117

Keywords: jimmy, jimmy kimmel, jimmy kimmel live, late night, talk show, funny, comedic, comedy, clip, comedian, mean tweets, Interview, Hollywood, Los Angeles, West Coast, Celebrity, Actor, The Iron Claw, Zac Efron, Wrestling, Von Eric, Kevin Von Eric, WWE, Magic Mike, Walk of Fame, Hollywood Star, Pro Wrestling, First Performance, Peter Pan, Holiday Plans, Christmas Shopping, High School Musical

Id: SL8ptKhSAQ4

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023