The Shortlist for Oct. 5

Zac Efron: 'Dating Is Kind of Hard’

After ending relationships with Vanessa Hudgens and Lily Collins in recent years, Zac Efron, 24, is still struggling to get back in the dating game. "Dating is kind of hard," he told Ellen DeGeneres on her Oct. 4 show. "A forced awkward situation is very strange. Especially for me, for some reason. I like to go and do something adventurous. I like to go out and do some sort of crazy activity." Which may account for one of the most memorable scenes in "The Paperboy," which stars Efron opposite Nicole Kidman. At one point in the film, Efron, wearing nothing but his skivvies, dances in the rain with Kidman, 45. "I was very prepared to give my all in a dramatic moment, and before I knew it, music started to turn up around me and [Nicole] kind of looked at me and said, 'You want to dance?' And they're still rolling, so I couldn't really say, 'Cut!' And before I knew it, we were improvising an entire dance in the rain." (Us)