Zac Efron gained 18 pounds of muscle for 'The Lucky One'

Zac Efron graduated to so many versatile roles after his starring role in High School Musical as a campus hottie. In his Warner Bros. movie The Lucky One, he is US Marine Sergeant Logan Thibault. Adapted from the book of the same name by Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, Dear John), The Lucky One stars Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Blythe Danner, Adam LeFevre, Sharon Morris, Joe Chrest, Riley Thomas Stewart, Courtney J. Clark, and Jillian Batherson.

Logan returns home from his third tour of duty in Iraq, with the one thing he credits with keeping him alive — a photograph he found of a woman he doesn’t even know. Discovering her name is Beth (Taylor Schilling) and where she lives, he shows up at her door, and ends up taking a job at her family-run local kennel. Despite her initial mistrust and the complications in her life, a romance develops between them, giving Logan hope that Beth could be much more than his good luck charm.

The Transformation

The role itself changed Zac, who literally had to transform himself physically and emotionally, to look, move, and react like a marine who had served in a war zone and seen far more violence and loss than his family or peers at home could even imagine. Zac’s preparation to play a seasoned marine included the physical rigors of training several months prior to production with military consultant James Dever, a retired sergeant major who spent 25 years in the US Marine Corps, and rising at 3:30 a.m. during filming to continue the regimen. That and a strict diet added 18 to 20 pounds of muscles to the actor. To complete the exterior metamorphosis, Zac buzzed his signature hair. 

Director Scott Hicks is all praises for Zac. “When we first see Logan in the film, we need to know what he’s gone through and understand some of the sense of trauma that he carries with him out of this conflict. I was very impressed by Zac’s commitment to not only change his physique but also to get into the mindset of a soldier. He created the slightly stony exterior of someone a little mysterious — a character we don’t know a great deal about at first.”

The internal work was equally, if not more, demanding. In order to get into his character’s psyche, Zac traveled with Scott Hicks to Camp Pendleton to talk to marines and see combat through their eyes.  “We took very seriously what these young guys go through serving overseas,” producer Denise Di Novi remarks. “Zac respected it, absorbed it, really internalized it, and I think you see that on film.  He does a great job in honoring those guys’ experiences.”

Interestingly, a number of the marines with whom Zac and Hicks met had a variety of good luck charms that they had carried with them into battle. Hicks describes, “One sergeant took out the remnants of what was barely recognizable as a playing card, which he’d taken with him on multiple tours. Once he lost it, which disturbed him deeply, but in the most extraordinary circumstances he found it again, quite by chance.” 

Zac says

Zac recalls of his Camp Pendleton visit, “When I got there, it was like stepping into a different world.  They stood with a purpose. They had laser focus, never broke eye contact.  This is my generation, on the front lines.  They’ve experienced some pretty gruesome things.  We sat and talked for several hours and they were the most amazing conversations I’ve ever had with anybody. In terms of research, it was priceless. I can’t thank them enough. The stories and personal feelings they shared became part of the canvas for Logan.”

“When I went in to meet some of these guys, the sergeants, I was blown away. I was taller than most of the guys, but they were just thick, like there was something about them. They had a definite presence. Here I am, slouched over and I just smile a lot. I’m just always smiling. These guys were (always serious). Honestly, it was one of the most awkward moments in my entire life. Essentially, they know you’re there to observe them. It’s sort of just an awkward position to be in. But after about two hours, the guys really opened up and just started to talk more freely about what it’s like. I definitely felt like I was inside, seeing the side of these guys that normal people really don’t get to see.”

On preparing for the role and undergoing military training, Zac says:

“Physically, I started eating a lot. Eating through walls. Just eating and eating. That’s all I’d do and I put on some weight that way. As far as the training goes, just trying different techniques and methods and working with a guy who I met who trained Vanessa [Hudgens] during Sucker Punch … I met him and trained with him for a few weeks. It was so intense and so different. It was so much fun, pushing it to the next level, that I asked him to work with me on this, and he was so gung-ho about it. He’s a navy seal. It’s one of the only concrete things that you can do to feel differently about a character. I didn’t feel like a marine. I didn’t have the posture. I didn’t feel like I had the presence and that was just one thing for me that I could do to really up that change.”

Zac describes his character, US Marine Sergeant Logan Thibault:

“I think there’s nothing as extreme as being out there in a war. Coming home, he’s forced to sort of rediscover his life or whatever. What’s next? He’s on his own to find out what ultimately makes him happy and what he wants to do. I think it’s very different from taking orders and being with your brothers constantly and fighting a war and then trying to live your life after and find love.”

“Logan is a sergeant in the marine corp. He’s in his third tour of duty and he’s been through it, you know. A lot of stuff has happened to him. He’s young, he’s only 24, but he’s been on the front lines. In just the act of finding the picture for the first time, it directly saved his life. He was in the right place at the right time when he found that photo. After that, he doesn’t really know where to put it, it just keeps coming back, it keeps resurfacing in places where it shouldn’t be. I’ve had stuff like that in my life … it keeps coming back to him. Every time it does come back to him, he seems to survive in situations where he shouldn’t be surviving. And many people around him aren’t so lucky, so it becomes his lucky photograph and his memento, his good luck charm.”

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