Zac Efron seems like a solid dude. Macho, but not too macho. He can do comedy and drama with equal skill. Sure, he takes his shirt off a lot for movies like Baywatch and Neighbors, but lest we forget that he first became famous for starring in feelings-inducing musicals, such as Hairspray and the High School Musical franchise.
Efron is also, like most people, a fan of Michael Jackson, a guy who could quite easily make people cry with ballads like “Ben” or “Man in the Mirror,” or that time in 2009 when he died. More specifically, he made Efron cry, and then himself as well.
Last Friday, Efron appeared on the U.K.’s raucous The Graham Norton Show to promote The Greatest Showman, and also to relate the sweet if strange story of his long-ago teary phone call with the late King of Pop.
Here’s how it went down. Efron was having dinner one night with Kenny Ortega, the choreographer and director who helmed Efron’s High School Musical and also came up with the dance moves for multiple Jackson concert tours. Ortega was on the phone with his old friend, Michael freakin’ Jackson, when he put Efron on the line, who somehow mostly kept his composure and did most of the talking. Then they hung up…only for Jackson to call back Ortega once he realized that he’d been talking to the Zac Efron from the High School Musical movies. Jackson, like so many before and after him, fanboyed out on the young star. That, understandably, overwhelmed Efron.
“I just lost it,” Efron said, “I lost my balance, I think I fell over into the wall. I was like, ‘You know who I am! What?!’” And that’s when the tears started to pour out of his eyes. Jackson, a sensitive and empathetic guy if ever one did exist, started crying, too.
And then after Efron told the story on TV, fans on Twitter got emotional, too.