How Neighbors Changed Everything For Zac Efron

Whoa, you're really villaining out in here

What's lame? What's going on? That's Pete talking to Teddy, but it might as well have been Zac Efron's fanbase 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 just a little flirt. I like her mom, I bet. Cool

Zac Efron started his career making minor appearances on shows like Firefly, ER, and The Guardian

He finally earned himself a reoccurring 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 earned two sequels, 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 Seventeen 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 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 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 Paperboy. 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 gonna 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 Radner, 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 they're 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's 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 it going Are you our new neighbors We your new neighbors

But after Mac and Kelly break a promise by making a noise complaint to the police

Teddy turns extremely spiteful, unusually fast. 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-age

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

Rogan, 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 image Efron won two MTV Movie Awards for Neighbors one for Best On Duo with Dave Franco and one for Best

Shirtless Performance. Okay, 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

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