As Zac Efron appears in new movie, fans speculate about jaw surgery: Here's what he's said
Zac Efron’s jaw has prompted much speculation over the years, since fans remarked that he looked different during an April 2021 Facebook Watch video with Bill Nye.
It took until the following year, 2022, for the "High School Musical" star to address the changes in his face and jawline. But fans again wondered about his appearance with his latest starring role in the Netflix romantic comedy "A Family Affair" and when he started promoting his movie "Iron Claw" in late 2023.
"A Family Affair" hit Netflix June 28, and “Iron Claw” became available to stream on Max in May 2024.
For the wrestling film, in which Efron starred as famous pro-wrestler Kevin Von Erich, the 36-year-old had to seriously bulk up, gaining 15 pounds of muscle, he told Variety. Here's what Efron has said about his recent physical transformations — both his jaw and otherwise.
Zac Efron's 'Iron Claw' transformation
In addition to sporting a bowl cut and '80s attire, including short shorts when he wrestles, Efron packed on the muscle for his new film.
“That necessity to be perfect — it became an obsession,” he told Variety. “It was a singular focus for months. And your life goes out the window during prep.” He spent hours a day on volume training and other forms of exercise.
“Then I was able to incorporate old-school body-building and Olympic lifting and really achieved that specific look of pro wrestlers, which was really hard," Efron added.
“Having all that weight on, you don’t feel normal. And the delayed-onset muscle soreness was through the roof. During preparation, it’s one thing to manage that — you don’t have to be super social. I found myself withdrawing quite a bit.”
Still, Efron was sure to prioritize his overall wellbeing.
“I learned a lot over the course of ‘Baywatch’ — I learned the hard way about not sacrificing my real health for a look on camera,” he said. “I had the right questions to ask for this one.”
The end result was that the “17 Again”star looked like a completely different person.
"In the best way possible, I did not look anything like me. It was jarring at first, but we kind of put it together piece by piece," he told The Hollywood Reporter at the movie's Los Angeles premiere on Dec. 11.
"Individually, the wig by itself looks kind of ridiculous. By themselves, the clothes look pretty crazy. When you put them all together in the sets that our team built and get out there in the ring under those lights, it looks like the Von Erichs, man, and that’s was our goal. I think it added a lot to it.”
In fact, Efron put on so much muscle that his co-star Jeremy Allen White, who plays Von Erich's brother Kerry, felt hopeless about his own physique.
"I had been training for months, lifting and doing this and doing that and eating more, and I showed up, and I saw him, and I’m like, ‘What is this even for? Why do I even try?'" White told Variety also at the premiere.
Efron later said in a December interview on TODAY that the changes to his appearance for the film required "a lot of work. ... That physical preparation was intense, but it really paid off."
Why does Zac Efron look different?
Zac Efron looked different promoting his film, "The Iron Claw," because of the transformation he underwent for the role, as well as an incident several years ago that injured his face.
For "The Iron Claw," Efron bulked up his muscles considerably. But social media users are pointing out that the actor’s famous arms and abs aren’t the only things to have appeared to have gotten swole.
On platforms like TikTok, users have shared various before-and after-comparisons of the actor’s jawline, which some say is looking much squarer in the past.
“Why did he have jaw surgery?” one user asked in the comments section of a TikTok. “Was it broke?”
Users were quick to respond with various explanations, with some insisting that he’d received cosmetic surgery and others suggesting he’d been in a severe car accident.
The speculation around Efron's jaw first started in April 2021 when fans noticed his jaw looked different when he appeared in a Facebook Watch video with Bill Nye.
The truth is that Efron injured his face several years ago, which required intensive treatment, including medical intervention and physical therapy, which ultimately led to his different jawline, he shared in a 2022 interview with Men’s Health.
Did Zac Efron get plastic surgery?
Efron has addressed speculation from fans that he underwent cosmetic surgery to change his jaw in the past. He said the changes to his jaw were not from plastic surgery, but rather due to recovering from a serious injury to his jaw.
In the 2022 Men's Health interview, Efron said a severe injury left his chin hanging off of his face. It required him to undergo physical therapy. But the actor had to stop physical therapy while he was in Australia filming his Netflix series “Down to Earth with Zac Efron.” As a result, he said certain muscles in his face became enlarged as they compensated for the other muscles that were still recovering from the injury.
“The masseters just grew,” he told Men’s Health. “They just got really, really big.”
Masseter muscles exist on both sides of the lower face and run from the temporal bone to the lower jaw, according to an article published by the National Institutes of Health. The muscles aid with chewing and eating.
How did Zac Efron shatter his jaw?
Efron injured his jaw several years ago when he was running through his house with socks on, according to Men's Health. The actor said he slipped while running and caught his face on the corner of a granite fountain. The collision was bad enough to render the actor unconscious, and when he woke, his chin bone was “hanging off of his face," the outlet reported.
In a September 2022 interview with "Entertainment Tonight," the actor said the accident nearly killed him. “It was funny,” he said. “It sucks. I almost died, but we’re good.”
In 2013, "E! News" reported that Efron actor fractured his jaw after “slipping in a puddle of water” near the entrance of his home. The outlet said his mouth was “wired shut, and in addition to breaking his jaw, he also sustained a gash in the fall that required stitches.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
