The leading man is tackling one of America's most notorious serial killers in his next role.
Zac Efron might just give you nightmares with his next role.
On Tuesday, Netflix released its first trailer for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, a film exploring the infamous American serial killer Ted Bundy’s murders from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer. Efron and Lily Collins play the couple at the center of the true-life drama, which includes the state and year-spanning killings, his escape from jail and ultimately receiving the death sentence.
Although this isn’t the film’s first trailer, Netflix offers a more meditative exploration of Bundy’s relationship with Kloepfer. Instead of a rock 'n' roll soundtrack, like the previous trailer, they chose a more subdued hypnotic tone that seemingly embodies the cloud of questions that surround Kloepfer’s charming, mysterious boyfriend.
The film premiered at Sundance in January, where Efron spoke with Variety about how he adopted the physicality of the serial killer.
"The main thing is that guys in the '70s have that wiry, thin look," he stated, sporting a new head of blonde hair at the time. "Ted was always kinda a little bit gaunt. He always looked pretty tired. So I had a good set of fake teeth that were pretty easy to talk with after a while. That was part of it… I just ate a lot of plant-based [food] and did a lot of cardio."
The title itself is a portion of a quote from Judge Edward Cowart, which he stated while sentencing Bundy to death in 1979.
The film also stars John Malkovich, Jim Parsons, Angela Sarafyan, Jeffrey Donovan, Grace Victoria Cox and Haley Joel Osment. It was directed by Joe Berlinger, who also directed Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bunny Tapes, another Netflix film.
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile arrives on the streaming service and in select theaters on May 3.
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