Between Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron in Baywatch, their health was pushed far as they trained to look as big as possible for the 2017 comedy. In an interview with Men’s Health, the Neighbors and High School Musical star revealed its negative effects on his body, including depression and insomnia.
There may not have been a project where Zac Efron trained harder than Baywatch, as seen on the screen with his abs of steel and deadly guns. While waking up at 4 a.m. to train, no matter how late the previous shoot went, he was taking diuretics, overtraining, and had the same three meals every day.
“I started to develop insomnia, and I fell into a pretty bad depression for a long time,” he said. “I had a really hard time recentering. Ultimately they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something up.”
Baywatch training for Zac Efron had consequences for his health
When looking back at his Baywatch bod, Zac Efron said that it made the skin look “CGI’d” and “fake” because of the lack of water in his skin. Looking ahead to any project that would require intense training, he would be content with “two to three percent body fat” rather than going to what he did for the Dwayne Johnson-led film.
Overall, for his “recentering,” it took six months for Zac Efron to recover from Baywatch. In response to getting back to normal, he wanted to do something different as he wanted to “fall out of shape.” That ended up being a “miserable” process.
“What if I said, ‘F— 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.”
Through that learning process of knowing what it was like to be in Baywatch shape and “bogged down and slow,” Zac Efron has now gone to another path for his health. While hitting the gym and keeping in shape, the actor leans into “mindful training,” which includes foam rollers, self-massaging, and ice baths.
While roles like Baywatch come up, Zac Efron has broken from raunchy comedies and Disney musicals in recent years. His latest film, The Greatest Beer Run Ever, premieres on September 30. He will be joined by Russell Crowe, Bill Murray, Kyle Allen (West Side Story), and Jake Picking (Top Gun: Maverick).