LOS ANGELES—It’s not often that an interview begins with a reporter asking a star if he has heard that one of his costars has told a magazine that the star is having a difficult time with stardom. However, that’s the way an interview with Zac Efron begins in a Los Angeles hotel room. He is asked what he thinks of his 17 Again costar Melora Hardin (perhaps best known for playing Jan in NBC’s version of The Office) telling the American magazine Parade that Efron isn’t adjusting well to being a movie star.

It comes on the heels of an announcement that Efron, who gained fame in High School Musical and its two sequels, has decided not to star in a remake of the film Footloose. He says that he has been asked a few times if he would do anything differently because the plot of 17 Again has him playing the younger version of a man who hates his adult life and gets a chance to live it over again.

“I honestly am not having a tough time,” he says. “The number one question that I get for this movie is, ”˜Would you go down the same road?’ I have been saying, ”˜Absolutely, this is the best job in the world.’ I am having the time of my life. This film is exactly what I was looking for. It was an opportunity to work with a brilliant cast and an amazing director [Burr Steers] and there was a chance to switch things up a bit. It does take place in a high school setting, but it’s not a very ”˜high school’ character, and I want more of that.”

In the film, which opens Friday (April 17), Efron plays Mike O’Donnell, who, in 1989, is the coolest guy at his high school. He is the star of the basketball team, is being scouted by colleges, and is dating the head cheerleader. However, when she gets pregnant, he decides to leave it all behind and marry her. Twenty years later (and now played by Matthew Perry), Mike is getting a divorce from his wife (Leslie Mann), he doesn’t have a particularly good relationship with his children (Michelle Trachtenberg and Sterling Knight), and he is passed over for a promotion after 16 years with the same company. He yearns to do it all over again, and, through magic, he becomes 17 again.

At 21, Efron is one of the biggest teen heartthrobs in show business. However, the High School Musical trilogy and a costarring role in Hairspray put him on a path that he never intended to take. The pigeonholing that has come with being linked to musicals is why he walked away from Footloose.

“I was looking for a change,” he says. “I have something in development called The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud that is more of the direction that I need to take. It’s interesting because when something like this happens, there are so many factors. There are a million things that go into making a decision like that. I feel better now. I am excited and I am hungry to move on to other things. Fred Astaire has been quoted several times that dance was his passion. I didn’t dance at all before High School Musical. It is a skill set I acquired for those movies. There are many things that I want to try.
I want to be well-rounded. I think of myself as kind of a Renaissance man, and that is what I am trying to get to in my career.”

Although there may be a temptation to label him a quitter after the Footloose fiasco, his 17 Again costar Thomas Lennon says he proved on set that he’s no quitter. “He had an emergency appendectomy in the middle of filming,” he says. “He came back after one day off for one of the biggest scenes in the film. I thought that was amazing, that he went from the hospital to the set.”

Efron brushes questions about his appendectomy aside with “It was something like that,” but he is more enthusiastic talking about hosting Saturday Night Live (which aired on April 11). “It has been a dream of mine since I was 10 years old,” he says. “Improv was how I got started, and although they do more sketch comedy, it was something I have wanted to get back to. I think it will be a great week.”