Want to make someone who grew up in the 2000s feel old? Zac Efron plays a dad with a full child in the new Universal film, Firestarter.

A new adaptation of the classic thriller from Stephen King, it follows “a girl with extraordinary pyrokinetic powers fights to protect her family and herself from sinister forces that seek to capture and control her.”

In the film, Andy (Efron) and his wife Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) have been on the run and hiding their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) “from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction.”

Shadow and Act spoke with Efron, Armstrong and director Keith Thomas about the film, redoing a King work and yes….the fact that Efron is playing an actual dad.

“To be completely honest, I loved the role,” Efron said when we asked him about it. “I loved the role, I loved Keith and I wanted to make the movie and was really excited. I didn’t even think about the father aspect until could tell like a couple of weeks before we started filming and was really going over the role. I realized that I’m a full-on data….and this is this first [time]? I think it is. It kind of hit me pretty late. Because there’s so much going on in the movie…I mean, we’re a family on the run from these crazy government forces that want to take my daughter and turn it into a weapon. So there was a lot going on and the dad stuff kind of came in later, but I’m happy that this was my first foray into a dad-type role. And it went great. Hopefully, there’s more to come.”

Though a young actress, Armstrong already has a ton of credits to her name. But she says this role challenged her in a specific way.

She explained “It was a huge challenge. I’m just gonna [state] the obvious I mean, she has this firepower, right? And so obviously, that’s already like a big step in this direction of surreal, power-like things. That was definitely a challenge and it was so interesting to experience that and to be like, ‘Oh, like, how am I going to make this believable and true to myself and to the audience?’ And so, I love that about Charlie and Firestarter and that I can kind of explore what I can do. That’s the best part about being an actor, and it’s so beautiful that I can be someone that I’m not and for a day.’

Watch the full interview below:

Firestarter is in theaters and streaming on Peacock now.

Zac Efron

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