Actor Zac Efron says he is lucky to be alive after he nearly collided with a bus during a bike ride with his “The Greatest Showman” co-star Hugh Jackman.
Efron appeared on the “The Graham Norton Show” along with “The Greatest Showman” co-stars Jackman and Zendaya.
He said that things almost got deadly when he decided to work out with Jackman one morning. “I cycled with him in London, but I’m not one to ride a bike early in the morning in traffic so it turned out to be quite dangerous,” Efron said on the show.
“I followed Hugh around a few cars and suddenly there was a double decker bus right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, went under the front tire and narrowly missed death,” he added.
Efron quipped that Jackman, who was on the other side of the road was not that concerned. He simply stuck up his thumb and said, “You good? Let’s go.”
The 30-year-old actor also shared on the show that while he never met the King of Pop face-to-face, he spoke to him briefly on the phone about a decade ago, when Jackson called movie director Kenny Ortega.
Efron said he was having dinner with the High School Musical director in Paris, when Ortega received a call from Jackson. He said that he had a total ‘fan moment’ and was ‘over the moon.’
He recalled, “So I was really confused but Michael said ‘Oh this is Zac from High School Musical?, I love you too, I’m a huge fan.’ And I lost it, I fell over into a wall, I started crying, I was a mess. I told him he was my hero and that made him cry, so we were both just crying down the phone to each other. And he ended the phone call by saying, ‘Hey Zac, isn’t it awesome? Dreams really do come true don’t they?’”
The Greatest Showman marks Efron’s return to a musical after starring in the popular Disney Channel franchise “High School Musical”, though the actor was a little hesitant in putting on dancing shoes again at first.