Zac Efron says 'A Family Affair' is Hollywood's version of 'The Office'

Zac Efron and Joey King want you to laugh at some of the more extreme aspects of celebrity culture because they're in on it.

In their new Netflix comedy A family matterEfron plays Chris Cole, a movie star who has become so famous that he can't even go grocery shopping anymore. As a result, he's become quite disconnected from reality and constantly snaps at his frustrated personal assistant Zara (King), who is ready to take her career to the next level and become a producer. When she finally gets fed up with her boss' ridiculous demands, including constantly breaking up with her girlfriends for him, she quits, unwittingly dragging her boss and his mother (Nicole Kidman) into a romantic collision that will change their lives forever.

Many of the scenes in the film revolve around the making of Chris' big-budget action movie, the third in a trilogy that catapulted him to global superstardom, and both King and Efron relished satirizing Hollywood through the script. “The funniest thing and the most fun to shoot was the inside knowledge of baseball, right there on set, to know what real life is like,” King says. Weekly Entertainment. “So the scenes that we shoot the movie in are really fun because you can infuse real-life elements into it.”

Efron agrees, adding: “It's like our version of Office or something like that, a little bit.”

The comparisons to the beloved sitcom don't end there, as Efron and King reveal that they also had to do a lot of improvisation while filming. A family matter.

“We had an incredible writer, Carrie [Solomon]who wrote the most hilarious script, and Richard [Lagravenese]“Our principal has been very collaborative,” King says. “In terms of integrating ourselves [into our characters]they were so wonderful about letting us improvise and really bring our own flavor to certain scenes. We would follow her script for multiple takes and then we would also do fun improv stuff with the suggestions she gave us on the side, so it was really fun. It was constantly like we were acting.”

Efron loved trying new things, especially since he knew he had the safety net of the writer and director, who would help him with suggestions during takes. “They would always have new things to try if we were running out of ammunition or ideas,” he adds. “It felt really safe and important to be in that kind of collaborative environment when you’re doing something like that.”

But it was not difficult for them to come up with new ideas because, thanks to their decades of experience in Hollywood, they both found their characters and the script very relevant.

“I’ve had some tough bosses, but I’m not as brave as Zara in standing up for myself,” King says. “I’m more like, ‘Okay. That sounds good!’ That’s just my personality.”

“The characters echo some of the things that maybe we’ve experienced in part, but we’ve also just seen through being in the industry,” Efron says. “I’ve witnessed a lot of that. And if you think about it, how that feeling for someone else who’s not dealing with it and reprocessing it, it turns into something funny and it creates a really fun, imperfect, but honest relationship for our characters, which I think is really special. It’s like they’re best friends, but they’re dealing with a lot.”

King adds with a laugh: “But sometimes they want to kill each other.”

While Efron also debuted in a hugely popular trilogy of films with The high school musical franchise, he thinks it's very different from what Chris goes through with his fiction Rush towards Icarus movies. “I've never made a big action movie like The rush towards Icarus,” he said. But all the scenes where Chris is dodging paparazzi, shooting magazine covers and having to navigate life under the harsh public gaze were definitely relatable. “I don't mean entirely “We can't relate to someone who can tell us stories, because that would be crazy,” he adds with a laugh. “But yeah, there were a lot of things where we were able to tap into some really good memories and blow them up.”

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Efron admits he identifies with “not being able to go to stores” like his character. But what about grocery stores, specifically? “Technically, I’m allowed to go,” he says, which makes King laugh.

“Technically, it’s “allowed!” “It's funny,” she says, adding that she goes to the grocery store herself two to three times a week. “Because I don't have anything to eat anymore. Then I have to go back. Just normal, regular things to do.”

“I love going there,” Efron says. “Every time I go there’s something new. It’s kind of like Chris, I’m blown away when there’s tons of new snacks. Farmers markets are where it’s at.”

A family matterarrives on Netflix June 28.