Entertainment Weekly magazine just released it’s Photo Issue (on newsstands now) and decided to put pretty boy Zac Efron on the cover of the issue. With his new movie High School Musical 3 ready to hit movie theaters (the first HSM sequel to show in movie theaters rather than on television) and his aforementioned “prettiness”, it seems like an appropriate choice for the mag. Here is Zac’s EW coverphoto and a portion of the magazine’s coverstory on him:

Most teenage heartthrobs insist that it’s actually a drag to be craved, day in and day out, by millions of underage girls. If we were to listen in on a cross-generational pinup guy support group (think: Shaun Cassidy, James Van Der Beek, the brothers Jonas), the litany of grievances would likely include the obliteration of privacy, the lack of fellowship with other dudes, and, worst of all, the assumption that they’re all a bunch of talentless knuckleheads. But Zac Efron, the current crown prince of the Tiger Beat set, takes a different approach to the experience. For him it’s not just a job, it’s an adventure. ”I’m always bobbing and weaving through alleyways trying to get to meetings, scouting out and looking outside doors and running around like Jason Bourne,” says Efron, who has emerged as a prime target of both the paparazzi and love-struck tweens ever since High School Musical became an international obsession almost three years ago. ”I’ve always loved secret agent movies, whether it be James Bond or Bourne Identity. Now I’m kind of living it” … Just weeks shy of his 21st birthday, Efron is plotting his route from teen phenom to adult actor. It’s a perilous path, littered with the failed careers of former pretty boys (anyone heard from C. Thomas Howell lately?), and Efron knows he’s got a tough hike ahead of him … Efron is plotting his escape from the teen scene by studying the winning playbooks of other young hunks who went legit. ”I would love to just sit down and talk with Leonardo DiCaprio and “Johnny Depp and pick their brains about their early careers,” Efron says, citing two recent actors who have made the leap from poster boys to Oscar contenders. ”They do it because they love it, not because they enjoy being famous. You have to have good foresight and be really careful. If you don’t adapt and learn at a very young age, you can really mess up” … As affable and easygoing as he likes to seem, Efron is also hyperaware of the precariousness of his position — and is happy to hide behind his buffed and polished Disney-trained media persona. He doesn’t swear and seems to sweat the potential fallout each time he offers an unfiltered glimpse of the smart, skeptical, archly funny guy underneath the admittedly bland facade. One minute he’s defending HSM’s whitewashing of adolescent angst, saying it’s good to present a ”why so serious” version of the high school experience. The next minute, when asked if he’s seen the current installment, he lets slip, ”I hope it’s better than the last one.” Then he panics: ”I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!’”

I mean, Zac is in a great position right now. He really does have the world at his feet. He has managed to stay out of trouble and has gathered the clout to pretty much steer his own direction. It always seems to me that if you manage to navigate the waters of a childhood star career (usually with Disney) then you manage to secure an amount of power that can really be used to your advantage. The trick is to use that power wisely. It remains to be seen if Zac will be one of the lucky ones but thus far he’s shown no sign that he might eff it all up. If he goes the Daniel Radcliffe route, then he’ll be set. Tho, it should be clarified that Radcliffe really has the acting prowess to make the transition very successfully into the adult world. I’m not sure that Zac is really up to snuff. But, he’s purdy and that will take him far … just how far is the question. After the jump, check out a bunch of photos from Zac’s EW photospread …

I gotta say … Zac wins my heart a little bit by posing with that old skool Polaroid camera. Some of you may be aware that I’m in a real Polaroid way these days and the pic of him with the Spirit 600 camera just thrills me. The rest of the pics are pretty standard Zac Efron fare. I think his fans will be taking some/all of them up on their walls … if they haven’t already ;)

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