As Footloose opened and failed to ignite many dancing feet Zac Efron probably felt right in bailing from the pointless remake, as he stepped back from musicals after the Disney High School Musical series that made him a teen idol to get serious about choosing serious or at least pointedly young adult film roles.

So we find that the low-key actor's image overhaul continues with his latest movie, now filming in Illinois:  the untitled Raman Bahrani film with Dennis Quaid as his father.  Who? you might ask.  Bahrani is the critics' favorite whose low budget films boast smarts, cinematic know how and a powerful emotional pull.  They include the affecting 2008 Goodbye Solo about a man determined to commit suicide and the immigrant taxi driver who tries to stop him; Chop Shop ('07) and Man Push Cart ('05), wchih were both shot in Queens, N.Y. and signaled the arrival of a considerable new talent.  For Efron this casting is a genuine coup and hopefully a big step forward after the lackluster reception for his 2010 bomb Charlie St. Cloud where he was a ghost.

Interestingly, Efron has completed filming The Paperboy for Precious director Lee Daniels, costarring with John Cusack and Nicole Kidman.  Interesting not just because this is from acclaimed writer Pete Dexter's novel but because this was the project that Pedro Almodovar considered as his first English language movie many years ago – which obviously never happened.

And speaking of the great Spanish filmmaker, his latest The Skin I Live In is sensational in every way and gifts Antonio Banderas with what's been called his best role in years as a sociopathic Spanish plastic surgeon in a modern day horror story.  THE HERALD will run a feature on Banderas next week before Skin opens on the 28th.  During our one on one interview at Manhattan's Regency Hotel I asked Banderas about his announced return to Broadway in a revival of Zorba! the Sixties musical based on Anthony Quinn's most famous movie.

Q: HOW DID THIS REUNION WITH ALMODOVAR HAPPEN? YOU HAVEN'T WORKED TOGETHER SINCE WHEN? TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN?
BANDERAS: Right. Well, it happened actually in the film festival of Cannes in 2002. He approached me and he said that he just bought the rights of Thierry Jonquet's novel, Tarantula it was called actually which is now actually the movie The Skin I Live In. And wanted us to make a movie out of it. And so he wanted to come to me to do so. It happened that almost ten years went by. Meanwhile he was preparing this story; he was doing, obviously, some other work. And finally a couple of years ago I was here, in New York actually, doing a workshop for Zorba the Greek.

Q: IS THAT GOING TO HAPPEN? IT'S BEEN ANNOUNCED.
BANDERAS: I hope it does. I hope that [producer] Barry Weissler is patient enough to wait for me because I would love to go back to the stage here in Broadway. One of the best things that happened to me in America was here in New York.

Q: WITH YOUR 2003 TONY NOMINATION STARRING IN THE HIT REVIVAL OF ANOTHER MUSICAL, NINE?
BANDERAS: With Nine.

Q: BUT THAT MEANS IT'S NOT GOING TO BE THIS SEASON, ANTONIO? YOU'RE TOO BUSY?
BANDERAS: This season is going to be impossible. I finish my promotional tour in December the 16th and then I'm going to make a movie and then probably I'm going to direct a movie, too. So probably in 2013 will be the year that I would love to come back here and do some theatre if the world didn't finish.

Q: SO BASICALLY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET YOU BACK ON BROADWAY FOR YEARS EVER SINCE NINE. AND ZORBA - YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE PLAYING THE YOUNG ALAN BATES ROLE, YOU'RE GOING TO BE PLAYING ZORBA. AREN'T YOU A LITTLE YOUNG FOR THAT STILL?
BANDERAS: Well, it would be if I go in 2013, I will be 53 already. I am 51 already. I think I am already on the category of actors who can play that character. Because, you know, the character played by Alan Bates is supposed to be a very young kid, probably 20 to 25 maybe. And so it will be, okay. And besides – HE LAUGHED - when I let my beard grow I become to the eyes of the people way older because my beard is totally white.

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