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Zac Efron On Why He Wanted To Play Ted Bundy In Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

January 31, 2019 | Posted by Joseph Lee
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile Zac Efron

In an interview with Variety, Zac Efron spoke about why exactly he wanted to play notorious serial killer Ted Bundy in the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Here are highlights:

On not wanting to take the role at first: “Initially, I had reservations about playing a serial killer. I’ve seen people make horror films like this before, and it seems like an aggressive play to separate yourself from a perceived image. And it’s got a lot of killing and hacking and slashing. I think I’ve seen that before too many times.”

On what appealed to him about playing Bundy: “This movie was really about a human being, somebody that perhaps I would have been friends with. And a love story from a very unique perspective. I’ve never seen that before. It’s intriguing to me. I think it’s more psychological and even more kind of a mindf–k.”

On his physical transformation: “I lost 13 pounds. It was a rather large transformation and lifestyle change. I have a road bike that I ride around, well, everywhere. I put that on a stationary trainer and every morning, I would get up and cycle on that for an hour and watch something episodic like ‘Ozark.’ I wasn’t eating carbs. I kind of just trimmed down a lot and really controlled my diet.”

On studying footage of Bundy: “Something clicked pretty early on, and it was kind of scary. It was that Ted and I had quite a bit in common in the way we carried ourselves. There are a few mannerisms. You can tell he’s a bit bashful. He’s kind of shy. He’s a well-spoken guy, but he hides his anxiety with a bit of a smile. I didn’t want to do too much of an impersonation.”