Zac Efron fell into 'bad depression' due to body changes filming 'Baywatch'

Zac Efron has one thing to say about his “Baywatch” beach body: never again.

That doesn't mean the actor won’t get buff for the next role that calls for an impressive physique — he’s already in the process of doing that for a future project — but he's made it clear he won’t put himself through the same process that left him suffering during the 2017 sun-and-fun flick.

“I started to develop insomnia, and I fell into a pretty bad depression, for a long time," Efron recently told Men's Health of "Baywatch" filming. "Something about that experience burned me out. I had a really hard time recentering."

And it wasn't just the workouts or the strict diet that challenge Efron, because packing on muscles and staying trim was only part of his process. In order to look so chiseled and get his six-pack to really pop on camera, the star took medications to reduce the amount of fluid in his body.

“Ultimately they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something up,” the 34-year-old explained.

It wasn't until six months after he'd finished filming that Efron began to feel like himself again.

Looking back on it all, Efron believes that his extreme effort to look perfect in the action-comedy actually left him looking unreal.

“That 'Baywatch' look, I don’t know if that’s really attainable," he said. "There’s just too little water in the skin. Like, it’s fake; it looks CGI’d. And that required Lasix, powerful diuretics, to achieve. So I don’t need to do that."

Back in 2017, Efron visited TODAY to promote "Baywatch," which he starred alongside Dwayne Johnson. During his chat with TODAY co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, he admitted that sharing the screen with the former wrestler, well known for his own physique, was daunting.

"Going up against The Rock, it’s impossible," he said at the time. "He’s an animal."

Thinking about future movie roles, Efron told Men's Health that he doesn't plan to ever go as far to change his body physically as he did with "Baywatch."

Instead, he quipped, "I much prefer to have an extra, you know, 2 to 3% body fat.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com