Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman may not be the likeliest of on-screen love interests, but they’re back at it in the upcoming Netflix rom-com A Family Affair.
In the film, Efron, 36, plays the cocky movie star Chris Cole, who enters into a relationship with his assistant Zara’s mother, Kidman, 56. It’s the second time the two have played romantic partners, after The Paperboy in 2012. They also appeared together in The Butler in 2013.
In the opening seconds of the trailer, Zara (Joey King) is seen walking in on Chris and her mother, then hitting her head on a door frame as she flees the room. When Chris tries to see if she’s OK, asking which film earned him a Teen Choice Award, Zara gives him the finger.
“I think she’s fine,” Chris says.
Throughout the two-minute trailer, Zara bemoans the awkward-but-funny fling between her mother and boss — to friends, her grandmother and her mother.
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“After two years of being his assistant, I know him very well,” she pleads with her mom. “He’s self-absorbed and selfish.”
On the other end, however, Kidman has her own mother (Kathy Bates) in her ear, calling Chris “BuzzFeed’s Hunkiest Brunette.”
Zara later turns to Chris, trying to get him to back off by saying, “This thing with my mother, this gross sexcapade thing, it’s over!” Ultimately, however, Zara is left yelling “you’re not Jack and Rose” at the two as they struggle to say goodbye in a parked car. She vows over the phone, “He’s going to hurt her, and I will have to kill him.”
For Efron, the chance to reunite with Kidman on-screen was too good to pass up.
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“I was still a bit apprehensive, but reuniting with Nicole is always so great and as talented as she as an actress, she is equally kind, caring and wonderful to spend time with,” he told People, adding that his and Kidman’s chemistry is “seamless, natural and fun.”
Director Richard LaGravenese added that, “the interplay between Joey and Zac’s characters as an assistant and star is so much fun. I also love the mother-daughter role reversal where the daughter becomes the disapproving, judgmental, suspicious parent and the mother is sneaking around her back having a love affair that makes her feel like she’s come back to life.”
A Family Affair was originally slated for a November 2023 release, but was delayed due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. It will finally hit Netflix on June 28.