Hairspray’s Hebrew Hotties
Heartthrob Zac Efron might be linked to such thin-limbed starlets as Vanessa Anne Hudgens and fellow member-of-the-tribe Ashley Tisdale, both of the Disney Channel’s “High School Musical,” but perfectly toned abs aren’t everything for the star of the new film “Hairspray,” which opens today.
“It’s really great in the movie, because in real life I’ve always tended to be that guy that goes for the Tracys,” Efron said during a roundtable interview July 17 in Manhattan. “And I’m very proud to play that [guy who] shows it’s really not about being that tall, perfect Amber girl, that blond girl that’s so stereotypical in high school. It’s about character, and about having fun. It’s about hobbies and your person.”
Efron told The Shmooze that he’s an agnostic and that the red string he was wearing “is just a bracelet that a friend made for me that hasn’t fallen off yet. No, it’s not Kabbalah,” he explained.
Stunning Amanda Bynes, a Nickelodeon breakout star, shared that director Adam Shankman had the actors watch dance shows from the 1960s, “because there’s a different move; the way that the ’60s dance goes is more to the side.”
As for the 21-year-old’s favorite film costume: “I like the tight pants on the boys. It was nice to actually see a form of legs as opposed to the normal, like, baggy, butt out.”
Bynes told us: “I’m not that religious. I believe in treating people how you want to be treated.”
The Forward is free to read but not free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
