Zac Efron has something in common with his character in his newest movie: They both had surgery on their jaw, leaving changes to their face.
Rumors that Efron got plastic surgery, causing his face to change, have surround the actor for several years, and he seems to acknowledge the controversy with a quick moment in Netflix's “A Family Affair,” which started streaming June 28.
In the scene, Efron, who plays a movie star named Chris, tells his love interest, Brooke, played by Nicole Kidman, about the constant speculation that he had plastic surgery. He then clarifies that he did not have surgery on his quads, as was rumored, and that the only surgery he'd had was on his face after an accident.
"I did have surgery, though," Chris tells Brooke. He then points to a scar on the bottom of his jaw, adding, "I fell on set, some broken glass."
In real life, Efron had an accident several years ago where he broke his jaw and needed surgery to fix it. He also underwent physical therapy, which he changed his jawline, he told Men’s Health in 2022.
Fans first started remarking on Efron's face looking different in April 2021, after he appeared in a Facebook Watch video with Bill Nye. When he posted a trailer for his new rom-com on his Instagram, fans once again started commenting on his face.
Here's what Efron has shared about his jaw and face changes.
Why does Zac Efron's face look different?
Zac Efron looks different in his film "A Family Affair" in part because it was filmed after an incident several years ago that injured his face and required surgery. It was also filmed while he was preparing to star in the movie "The Iron Claw," for which he underwent a serious physical transformation.
"A Family Affair" was filmed from August to October 2022, and "The Iron Claw" started filming in October the same year.
For "The Iron Claw," in which Efron starred as famous pro-wrestler Kevin Von Erich, the 36-year-old had to gain 15 pounds of muscle, he told Variety.
“That necessity to be perfect — it became an obsession,” he told the outlet. “It was a singular focus for months. And your life goes out the window during prep.” He spent hours a day on volume training and other forms of exercise.
“Then I was able to incorporate old-school body-building and Olympic lifting and really achieved that specific look of pro wrestlers, which was really hard,” Efron added.
“In the best way possible, I did not look anything like me. It was jarring at first, but we kind of put it together piece by piece,” Efron told The Hollywood Reporter at the movie’s Los Angeles premiere in December 2023.
Efron later said in a December interview on TODAY that the changes to his appearance for the film required “a lot of work. ... That physical preparation was intense, but it really paid off.”
Did Zac Efron get plastic surgery?
Efron has addressed speculation from fans that he underwent plastic surgery to change his jaw in the past. He said the changes to his jaw were not from cosmetic surgery, but rather due to recovering from a serious injury to his jaw.
In the 2022 Men's Health interview, Efron said a severe injury left his chin hanging off of his face. It required him to undergo physical therapy. But the actor had to stop physical therapy while he was in Australia filming his Netflix series “Down to Earth with Zac Efron.” As a result, he said certain muscles in his face became enlarged as they compensated for the other muscles that were still recovering from the injury.
“The masseters just grew,” he told Men’s Health. “They just got really, really big.”
Masseter muscles exist on both sides of the lower face and run from the temporal bone to the lower jaw, according to an article published by the National Institutes of Health. The muscles aid with chewing and eating.
How did Zac Efron shatter his jaw?
Efron injured his jaw several years ago when he was running through his house with socks on, according to Men's Health. The actor said he slipped while running and caught his face on the corner of a granite fountain. The collision was bad enough to render the actor unconscious, and when he woke, his chin bone was “hanging off of his face," the outlet reported.
In a September 2022 interview with "Entertainment Tonight," the actor said the accident nearly killed him. “It was funny,” he said. “It sucks. I almost died, but we’re good.”
In 2013, "E! News" reported that Efron actor fractured his jaw after “slipping in a puddle of water” near the entrance of his home. The outlet said his mouth was “wired shut, and in addition to breaking his jaw, he also sustained a gash in the fall that required stitches.”
