Awesome Villager of the Week (07/26 – 08/01)

Zac Efron

When you talk about child actors, more times than not as they begin to get older they tend to burn up under the spotlight.  Recently, there has been a lot of news about Lindsay Lohan and the mess that her life has become.  However, it isn’t always the case that child actors have to become totally screwed up as they begin to mature into adults.  Perhaps the most fitting example of a child actor who has evolved into a stable and genuine talented actor is our latest Awesome Villager Zac Efron.

After being showcased in some bit parts in television shows such as Firefly and ER when he was very young, Zac skyrocketed to the upper stratosphere of fame when he was cast in a little show on the Disney Channel called High School Musical. All of a sudden, Zac when from a unknown character actor to someone whose face was featured on lunch boxes and school supplies all over America.

After he became a genuine phenomenon due to the success of High School Musical, it would have been very easy for Zac to just milk that franchise for all it was worth and then sit back and self destruct.  However, Zac showed true class by venturing out and letting his acting chops grow.  First off, Zac showed that he could be pretty hilarious to audiences that hadn’t seen one second of High School Musical with his performance as Link Larkin in the 2007 remake of Hairspray.  In Hairspray, Zac seemed to have a great deal of fun playing off his High School Musical persona and seemed to be the perfect choice to play this crooner from the 1960s.

However, the main question was if Zac could succeed in a project where he wasn’t required to sing or dance.  This question was answered when Zac proved to critics everywhere just how great he was in the well received drama Me and Orson Welles.  Zac also showed that he could headline a hit film when his comedy 17 Again became a real moneymaker in 2009.  The great thing about Zac is that besides being just awesome in many of the projects he’s featured in, he really doesn’t take himself too seriously and he actually looks like he’s having a good time being famous.  With the Twilight crew always looking awkward and miserable, and Lohan hanging with felons, it’s really cool to see Zac showing up on Funny or Die making fun of himself or doing voice work on Robot Chicken.  With the current generation of movie stars growing older by the minute, Zac actually gives movie fans a ray of hope that the future of Hollywood may actually be in capable hands.

This week Zac takes yet another step in the right direction with the release of his latest film Charlie St. Cloud. This film, which combines drama with a bit of fantasy seems to be one of the more highly anticipated movies of the second half of the summer, and the buzz surrounding it has been nothing but good.  So, for showing audiences everywhere that it is absolutely possible for a child actor to actually morph into a stable adult, and to celebrate the release of Charlie St. Cloud, in addition to him being totally awesome, The Village Elders are more than pleased to present the latest Awesome Villager of the Week Award to Mr. Zac Efron!