Playing Ted Bundy Challenged Zac Efron’s Mental Health

Health & FitnessJuly 19, 2019

Most actors indulge in method acting so they can play roles to a T, sometimes even living their lives as their characters would have, as long as the filming is underway. We are sure you’ve heard of the story where actor Jared Leto became the joker even when the camera wasn’t rolling, during filming of the movie The Suicide Squad. He managed to freak out a lot of his co-stars!

It’s a different case with Zac Efron, whose Netflix movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, premiered on May 3. The actor admitted his mental health was put to the test while filming, which was the reason he couldn’t do method acting even if he badly wanted to do so.

Efron admitted that this was the first film where he was able to compartmentalize himself, simply put he separated himself from his character instead of becoming it, which he usually does. How could he, when he is portraying notorious serial killer Ted Bundy? The actor said that whenever he went home after shooting, he left Bundy’s character behind on the film set, for the safety of his emotional and mental health.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile tells the tale of Bundy who killed a total of 30 women during the 1970s. The story was built on the perspective of Elizabeth Kloepfer, Bundy’s girlfriend. The film has received a lot of backlash when the trailer was released, with some people calling out the film for glamorizing the life of a serial killer.

Efron could not disagree more, which is why he and film director Joe Berlinger went out of their way to assure the public that they were not glamorizing or glorifying a horrendous killer like Bundy. Berlinger clarified that his movie only depicts how a serial killer deceived and manipulated people throughout his life, that delayed his capture and enabled him to even escape from the authorities.

Efron has starred in a series of funny, romantic and lighthearted movies in the past, and with this new dark movie, his fans would probably be glad to see him play his usual roles again.