Zac Efron for BlackBook, October/November 2012

Zac Efron is featured in the October/November 2012 Issue of Blackbook Magazine, and the article and photoshoot are amazing. I love the styling of the shoot and the animals made it so original and fun, I love it. The photography is by Doug Inglish, styling by Christopher Campbell, and the article by Joshua David Stein.

It’s the belly of August, and by the time Zac Efron reaches the Valley, the mercury is scraping the three–digit mark. An hour later, after Efron goes through hair and makeup, and meets the animals with whom he’ll be working—Richard the hawk, Kina the gray fox, Eddie the monkey, Zeus the screech with cataracts—it’s 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The dead dry heat sits over Sylmar, the northernmost town in Los Angeles and the home of the Wildlife Learning Center. In a two-acre plot, on a street lined with cookie cutter exurb houses, David Riherd cares for over 50 wild animals, many of whom were kept as illegal pets or found abandoned. It used to smell of olive groves here years ago when the mistrals swept up San Fernando Valley. Now no breeze moves the desiccated air, and the scorched earth smells, understandably, like a zoo. Nevertheless, Zac Efron, who is wearing a full suit on which Zeus is pooping and whose pockets are full of bunnies, is beaming. “Animals are dope!” says Efron as his cherubic lips part from pucker into a SoCal surfer boy grin. Continue reading