2012 Cannes Film Festival: Did Nicole Kidman Really Give Zac Efron a Golden Shower?

Festivalgoers were treated to an eye-opening scene in which the actress urinates on her younger cohort

By Josh Grossberg May 24, 2012 3:58 PMTags
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Zac Efron's been trying to shed his High School Musical image, but taking a golden shower might be a little much.

An outlandish scene in which Nicole Kidman urinates on the erstwhile Disney star in their new film, The Paperboy, has become the talk of the Cannes Film Festival this week.

But it's not what you think.

The steamy 1960s-era drama, director Lee Daniels' follow-up to his Oscar-winning Precious, finds Efron and Matthew McConaughey teaming up to play brothers who investigate a murder in the hopes of exonerating a Florida death-row inmate named Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack).

Kidman costars as Charlotte, the beautiful trailer trash vixen who gets her thrills writing condemned killers in prison. In this case, however, after falling in love with Van Wetter, she enlists McConaughey's journalist to help free him so the two can marry.

Needless to say, the cougar-licious Charlotte injects plenty of sexual tension into the proceedings.

"If anyone's gonna pee on him, it's gonna be me," the 44-year-old actress says before unleashing a stream of urine on the 24-year-old actor's bare chest.

But before you let your imagination run away with you, it was all in the interest of easing Efron's character's pain after he had just been stung by a jellyfish on a beach.

And here we thought it was a female-centric update of Last Tango in Paris.

But for those ladies and gents crushing on the heartthrob, you'll be happy to know Efron prances around in his briefs for much of the movie, including one instance when he's caught in soaking wet underwear in a downpour.

When asked at the Cannes press conference beforehand whether he felt "eroticized" in the role, Efron suggested it was all part of the job.

"I don't think I was supposed to be comfortable," the actor replied. "It's like life. This character is learning the ways of the world. That can be uncomfortable."

"Eroticized?" chimed in Daniels. "He's good-looking. The camera cannot help but love him. And I'm gay."

The Paperboy is slated to hit theaters in November.