Why is everyone talking about Zac Efron’s face? (Picture: REUTERS)
Zac Efron plays the dashing lead in Netflix’s new rom-com, A Family Affair, but fans are already pointing out how different the actor looks.
The High School musical star appears opposite Nicole Kidman and Joey King in the new film which follows movie star Chris (Zac) who strikes up a relationship with his assistant’s (Joey) widowed mother Brooke (Nicole) with chaotic results for the trio.
As viewers delivered their verdict on whether this latest streaming service romance is a hit or miss, many have shared concerns over the actor’s face, saying he looks like an ‘entirely different person’.
Others speculated whether he has taken the familiar pipeline for many older Hollywood stars and invested in some form of cosmetic surgery.
Although the Iron Claw actor has had jaw surgery in the past, it’s not for the reason fans may assume.
So here’s everything we know about the Hollywood star’s facial transformation.
Zac has sparked face discourse again after appearing in A Family Affair (Picture: Tina Rowden/Netflix)
What actually happened to his jaw?
News that Zac hurt himself first broke in 2013, with details emerging that his jaw had been wired shut and he required stitches.
In April 2021, after an Earth Day special Bill Nye, the internet caught onto how radically different his facial structure appeared, sparking social media discourse about what happened.
A year later, the Greatest Showman actor told Men’s Health Magazine that he severely injured his jaw in a freak accident at home.
He explained that he had been running through his house in socks and slipped, smashing his chin against the granite corner of a fountain.
This is what the actor looked like prior to the accident (Picture: PA Wire/Press Association Images)
This is what he looks like now (Picture: Netflix/YouTube)
He added that the masseter muscles in his face, used for chewing, were affected and after his injury, the muscles on the inside of his face and jaw had to compensate.
He worked with a specialist and physical therapist during his recovery with noticeable side effects. ‘The masseters just grew,’ he added.
‘They just got really, really big.’
What are the masseter muscles?
According to the National Institutes of Health: ‘The masseter muscle is one of the four muscles responsible for the action of mastication (chewing). When the masseter contracts it causes powerful elevation of the mandible causing the mouth to close’
He later spoke with Entertainment Tonight about his reaction to the rampant online speculation.
‘My mom told me. I don’t really read the internet, so, I don’t really give a f**k,” Zac initially explained.
‘It was funny,’ he said about the idea he had received plastic surgery. ‘It sucks. I almost died, but we’re good.’
What has Zac previously said about his relationship with body image?
Zac starred in Baywatch in 2017 (Picture: Frank Masi)
Zac has previously opened up about his struggles with transforming his looks for certain roles such as in Baywatch and the Iron Claw.
Elsewhere in his interview with Men’s Health he explained that he wasn’t sure the chiselled Baywatch look was ‘really attainable’.
He continued: ‘[It] required Lasix, powerful diuretics, to achieve. So I don’t need to do that. I much prefer to have an extra, you know, 2 to 3 percent body fat,
He overtrained his body and ate the same three meals every day, going to bed after midnight post-filing and waking up at 4am.
‘I started to develop insomnia. And I fell into a pretty bad depression, for a long time. Something about that experience burned me out. I had a really hard time recentering.’
He also featured in The Iron Claw (Picture: A24)
Zac added: ‘Ultimately they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something up.’
Although it ‘used to be a dream’ to have his body ‘in shape all the time’, his attitude eventually shifted.
‘What if I just say, “F**k it” and let myself go? So I tried it, and I was successful.
‘And for all the reasons I thought it would be incredible, I was just miserable. My body would not feel healthy; I just didn’t feel alive. I felt bogged down and slow.’
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