The following news is 100% true and not something you read about in celebrity fan fiction. Hugh Jackman rescued Zac Efron from a fire. Efron told MTV News' Josh Horowitz at CinemaCon that an on-set fire got out of hand, resulting in the rescue.
"It started to get late, and some of the pyrotechnics got a little bit too hot," the actor recounted. "We burst out of the building. It looked great on camera. We didn't know it [at the time], but it was pretty intense. I watched playback, and he saved me from a burning building."
The rescue wasn't entirely improvised, though. The two are currently filming the upcoming musical The Greatest Showman, a fictionalized account of real-life entertainer P.T. Barnum. In the scene they were filming, Barnum (Jackman) rescues his assistant Phillip (Efron) from a fire. The difference is that in this situation, the fire wasn't just movie magic — this was a viable blaze that could have potentially hurt the actors.
According to Efron, the fire did damage the film's set. He added, "[The set] later exploded that night. It was a set, but it later burned down." That is actually pretty terrifying.
Efron has a pretty good outlook on the situation, scary though it may have been. "Hugh Jackman saving you from a burning building? It's every girl's dream," the 29-year-old said. (As a woman who very much dislikes burning buildings in general, I would like to say that this is not my dream. I would much rather encounter Hugh Jackman in a safe place like the botanical gardens or moonlit beach, you know?) Teen Vogue notes that the scenario is every person's dream, an important distinction. We'd add that this seems like a fairly dangerous situation. Pyrotechnics are no joke, and it's not uncommon for actors to get hurt on set. So, the image of Hugh Jackman carrying Zac Efron out of a burning building may be romantic, but let's remember these are real people who are vulnerable to fires and stuff.