Zac Efron Opens Up About Playing Nicole Kidman's Lover Again 12 Years After The Paperboy: 'Nervous Back Then'

Zac Efron was in a different headspace when he was wooing Nicole Kidman onscreen over a decade ago.

Back in 2012, the two starred in The Paperboy, in which Efron’s wide-eyed character falls for an older woman (Kidman) who is in love with an incarcerated murderer.

“We had so much fun doing that, but it was crazy,” Efron tells PEOPLE.

The two reunite in a more lighthearted fashion for Netflix’s new romantic comedy A Family Affair. This time Efron, 36, plays an egotistical, relationship-challenged movie star making the moves on the mother (Kidman, 57) of his personal assistant (Joey King, 24). 

One thing has remained the same, though, no matter what's on the page. "I’m still so enamored with Nicole," Efron says. “There’s a part of me that pinches myself when I realize who I’m working with a lot. I think that was more pronounced during The Paperboy because I was a lot younger. I was very nervous back then.”

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Like their first foray, the two share intimate love scenes in A Family Affair, but they approached the subject matter with a familiar ease. 

“It's really helpful when you're doing this sort of work together that you've already got a history together, because it's easy,” says Kidman. “You're not working to create a history. So I'm not like, ‘Can I touch you?’ I feel incredibly trusting of Zac.”

Efron adds, “We both feel safe, and we take care of each other.”

Flipping the script on typical May-December tales, A Family Affair initially caught both stars’ notice thanks to its original NSFW title, Motherf---er.

“Somehow that didn’t make it onto the Netflix title,” says Kidman with a laugh. Says Efron, “But that made the script stay at the top of the pile. It’s like, what on earth could this be about?”

Kidman calls the script, written by Carrie Solomon, a breath of fresh air in the rom-com space. 

“We’ve had it from way back with older men and younger women, that’s just always been the norm — it’s okay, it’s completely acceptable,” says Kidman. “The problem is we’ve not had the equivalent from all different viewpoints, with women telling the stories.” 

She continues: “And we need game men. [Efron] came in and makes the film because he was like, 'I’m here to have fun, to play, and to very much be a part of this and be there for you,' for both Joey and I.”

On set, Efron was working double time, squeezing in intense workouts as he prepared to film the wrestling sports drama The Iron Claw.

"A lot of the stuff that I was doing in preparation kind of worked its way in [A Family Affair],” says Efron. “Like the ice bath was just in front of my trailer. I was constantly doing it because I was so sore."

"[Director Richard LaGravanese] came to give me some notes over lunch and I was in the ice bath the whole time, shivering while he was telling me notes. He was like, 'Dude, we have to put this in the film.’ Then the next scene, we just did like a 20-minute ice bath [scene with] Joey.”

Did Kidman brave the freezing water? ”I kept saying I would, and then I never did!” she says. Efron says with a smile, “I had it ready to go every day.”

A Family Affair is on Netflix June 28.