Matthew Perry says Zac Efron turned down playing younger version of him in new movie
Matthew Perry has revealed Zac Efron turned down a role playing a younger version of him.
Efron played a younger version of Perry in 2009’s 17 Again, and Perry had reached out to the High School Musical star with another role as something of a spiritual sequel.
“I finished a screenplay that we’re out with to some people. I want to direct that,” Perry told SiriusXM’s Pop Culture Spotlight With Jessica Shaw, explaining he had written a rom-com.
“I have a small part in it. I wrote it for myself and then realised I’m 20 years too old to play this. So we’re trying to cast the leads now.”
Perry said he reached out to Efron who declined the offer. “He said no, so we’ve got to find someone who says yes,” the actor explained.
He also added that Aubrey Plaza almost joined the project as the female lead. “There’s some dramatic stuff in this too. She came very close, and it would have been perfect,” Perry added.
Elsewhere, Matthew Perry recently explained why his voice sounded different on 2020’s Friends reunion special.
Perry detailed having to undergo “emergency dental surgery” just days before filming. “They did all sorts of things,” Perry told a journalist, saying the operation “made [his] mouth feel like fire.”
“It sounded like my voice was off,” he acknowledged, but added that he felt he “couldn’t not show up.”
He went on: “So what I chose to do was just go and do the best that I could.”
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Ella Kemp
NME
