Zac Efron's acting career may be worth millions now, but his first audition was a disaster, he has revealed.

The 22-year-old, who made his name playing lead character Troy Bolton in Disney's High School Musical franchise, said he "kind of wept" when he was turned down for the part of Peter Pan after his "worst audition ever".

Zac, who is in London to promote his latest film Me And Orson Welles, said he was over-confident about landing the part and missed out after "going crazy" in the audition.

At a press conference to promote the forthcoming film, directed by Richard Linklater, Zac was asked which had been the worst audition of his career.

He replied: "My first audition ever was for this Peter Pan live action show when I was 15 and I'd just done the play Peter Pan so I thought 'who could be better'.

"I showed up and it was on tape in this tiny room. On stage you speak to the back of the room and you project and Peter Pan is very animated and jumping off things and going crazy so that's what I did in the audition, running around and jumping off my chair, singing the lines.

"This woman interrupted me and goes 'you've never done this before have you?' and I went 'no' and she went 'okay you can go' and that was the worst audition ever, ever in my life.

"I kind of wept about that one."

Me And Orson Welles is out in cinemas on December 4.