Zac Efron says he has never visited a Madame Tussauds Wax Museum to check out his own wax figure.
Fortunately, Ellen DeGeneres solved that problem when the “High School Musical” and “The Greatest Showman” star dropped by her show Tuesday ― bringing a wax doppelgänger of Efron in bare-chested “Baywatch” mode onto the set for him and the audience to admire.
As Efron perused the figure, which is usually housed at Madame Tussauds Hollywood in Los Angeles, he found it to be surprisingly lifelike, down to his underarm hair and stomach veins.
“Whoever did this, I’m very impressed and scared,” he said before flexing and lifting his shirt to compare the sculpture to the real thing.
All joking aside, Efron used the moment to deliver a message about body positivity.
“For guys, that’s unrealistic. I’m telling you, I got very big and buff for that movie, but I don’t want people to think that’s the best way to be,” he said. “Be your size. I don’t want to glamorize this.”
Efron also opened up about his new movie, “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” in which he portrays serial killer Ted Bundy.
The film, which hits Netflix on Friday, has sparked controversy among critics for they perceive as the glamorization and sexualization of Bundy, who admitted to murdering 30 women (though the number of victims is believed to be higher) prior to his execution in 1989.
“I am not into portraying a serial killer, or anybody of his nature [and] glamorizing them in any way,” he said, calling the movie “very introspective and intelligent.”
“Ted Bundy was a clean-cut white dude ― talk about white privilege,” he said. “What he got away with back then, nobody would be able to today. It’s a moment in time that came and passed — and is truly scary — but it does not glamorize the killing.”