Zac Efron felt uncomfortable filming his revealing role in “The Paperboy” — and he says that’s the way he wanted it.

The “High School Musical” actor has moved into decidedly grown-up territory with the film by “Precious” director Lee Daniels, which screened on May 24 at the Cannes Film Festival.

It’s a swampy slice of Southern gothic set in the 1960s, with Efron as an aspiring writer helping his journalist brother (Matthew McConaughey) investigate a possible miscarriage of justice. Efron’s Jack falls for Nicole Kidman’s sparky but sultry belle, who is in turn obsessed with a death row inmate (a supremely creepy John Cusack).

Efron spends much of the film in his underpants, but says he didn’t mind the scrutiny.

“I don’t think I was supposed to feel comfortable,” the 24-year-old actor told reporters in Cannes. “It’s like life. This character is supposed to be learning the ways of the world, and that can be very uncomfortable. But it’s also exciting.”

Efron is not the only actor required to bare his soul in the movie, which combines a crime thriller plot with a swampy landscape and undercurrents of racism and sexuality into a pungent gumbo.

An adaption of a 1995 novel by Pete Dexter, “The Paperboy” has seen mixed responses in Cannes.

But the actors seem to have adored the experience. Efron said working with Kidman had been a dream.

“I’ve been in love with her for a long time — since ‘Moulin Rouge,’” Efron said. “It was the loveliest time in the world for me.”

(SD-Agencies)