Zac Efron on Vanessa Hudgens, Tom Cruise and why he turned down ‘Footloose’

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There’s a chatty lining to ‘Charlie St. Cloud,’ meaning its headliner, Zac Efron, recently opened up about girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens, his motorcycle date with Tom Cruise and why he turned down the lead in the ‘Footloose’ remake.

‘Believe me, I rack my brain thinking, ‘Why am I not out there playing the field?’ One of my buddies was like, ‘You have no idea what’s going on right now. You’re peaking on Ecstasy and you’re watching TV.’ But it’s not in my heart,’ he says about girlfriend Hudgens, in the new issue of Details magazine.
He calls the love between him and his ‘High School Musical’ costar ‘exactly how it should be. It’s real.’

A more surreal experience occurred recently when Efron visited talent agency CAA and was flagged down in the lobby by Tom Cruise, who asked if the young star knew how to ride a motorcycle. After Zac admitted he didn’t, Cruise offered to teach him.

The two spent a day talking about how the smaller engines work, followed by a tour of the hangar that Cruise keeps his bikes in.

‘It’s just so cool,’ Efron said, ‘... the fact that he cared at all.’

Perhaps the actors talked shop, as Efron certainly has his pick of projects these days, including ...

... a remake of ‘Footloose’ that had set its sights on him. ‘All the things I loved about ‘Footloose’ I couldn’t find in the [new] project. They just weren’t there. I couldn’t see myself doing it,’ he said.

-- Matt Donnelly

Related dispatches from the Ministry of Gossip:

Zac Efron, Dakota Fanning and more star in ‘Stand Up to Cancer’ PSA

Report: Zac Efron may star in Nicholas Sparks’ ‘The Lucky One’

Couples update: Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens slip into something more comfortable