Did Zac Efron Do His Own Stunts In The Greatest Showman?

"The Greatest Showman" is one of the most successful live-action musicals of all time (via Deadline). Grossing nearly $435 million at the worldwide box office (via Box Office Mojo), the film was nominated for the Best Musical or Comedy award at the 2018 Golden Globes, while its original song, "This is Me," won Best Song at the awards show and went on to earn an Oscar nomination as well. On its own, the film boasts an all-star cast, with Hugh Jackman portraying protagonist P.T. Barnum and actors Michelle Williams, Zendaya, and Zac Efron all appearing in supporting roles.

As its title suggests, showmanship is at the core of "The Greatest Showman," a film that revolves largely around the members and performances of an eccentric circus troupe. In one very memorable scene, Phillip Carlyle (Efron) and aerial artist Anne Wheeler (Zendaya) find themselves in an intimate embrace while soaring around a ring on a flying trapeze. The scene is quite awe-inspiring, but we have to wonder: Did the actors themselves do this remarkable stunt? After all, even for the most talented film actor, copying the skills of a circus performer is no easy feat.

It turns out that Zac Efron and Zendaya did actually do their impressive aerial stunt together in "The Greatest Showman." Speaking with MTV News, the actors revealed that the scene may have looked pretty, but the filming of it was far from easy (or elegant).

Even with all their training, the stars were still apprehensive when it was time to get in the air. "We learned everything on the ground, and there's only so much you can predict and know on the day you're lifted up," Zendaya told the outlet. That said, what they probably could have predicted was just how many bumps and bruises they would gain while filming the sequence. "There are some very famous outtakes of them swinging in and just slamming [into each other] and just hanging limp," shared the film's director, Michael Gracey. "It's not graceful at all! And it looks incredibly painful."

Efron added that Zendaya was the one who made the impressive stunt work. "She would be like, 'Well, what if I did this?' And she'd do a backflip over the hoop," he said. "We're like, 'Yeah, that fixes pretty much everything. Let's go with that. We didn't know you could do that.'"

Despite all the injuries they suffered during the making of it, the scene remains one of the most visually stunning that "The Greatest Showman" has to offer — and knowing that Efron and Zendaya really did perform the stunt just makes it all the more impressive.