A Family Affair features footage from a fake Hot Ones with Zac Efron and Sean Evans.

When it comes to press tours, a fan-favorite stop for celebrities these days is Hot Ones, the interview show hosted by Sean Evans that sees actors opening up about their careers while eating hot wings. We’ve seen many A-listers come through and take on Evans’ spicy challenge, and it’s always exciting to find out who will be next. Turns out, Zac Efron filmed a fake Hot Ones for his new movie, A Family Affair. 

The film hit Netflix today and sees Efron starring as a fictional movie star named Chris Cole (Efron) with a young assistant, Zara Ford (Joey King). Their relationship isn’t exactly good, and things get even worse when Chris starts daring Zara’s mother, Brooke Harwood (Nicole Kidman). In the film, you see a highlight reel of Efron’s career that uses both real and fictional footage. The movie’s director, Richard LaGravenese, confirmed Efron filmed an entire Hot Ones in character, but the whole thing didn’t make the cut. 

“That sequence was a long time in the making,” LaGravenese told TheWrap with a laugh. “I mean, getting it just right and getting the different pieces. And we wanted it to be most of the most current form of Zac. So some things we staged, like his date, but a lot of the ones, really, was just sort of a rhythm thing that went with the music, and we just needed to show that he was a global star.”

“We had originally shot a full episode of the Hot Ones, which I’m sorry we don’t get to show, which was a full interview that Sean and and Zac did together that was filled with a lot of funny improvs and things like that,” LaGravenese added. “But it was too time-consuming and we couldn’t put the whole thing in there. But that was part of what the opening was going to be.”

“It was really fun. We had four cameras, and the two of them just went at it, like over and over. It was really fun to film, Sean was delightful. He was really great to work with,” he added.

Efron did do a real Hot Ones back in 2020. You can check it out below:

The Family Affair is currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with a 46% critics score and 31% audience score. If you want to judge the film for yourself, it is now streaming on Netflix.