Are Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron Going to Flame Out?

Where will we find teen superstars Miley and Zac in 20 years? You might be surprised...

Where do you see the tween stars like Miley Cyrus or Zac Efron in 20 years?
—Laura

As much as you may hate to hear this, all three of these talents—Miley, Zac and Zac's mesmerizing hair—just might have long-term potential, or at least enough to avoid a Lindsay Lohan-style flameout. I have enough evidence to predict Miley and Zac landing safely—if not in a Reese Witherspoon-style A-list career, than at least a comfy, Raven-Symone-style rut. Interestingly, we should have more conclusive evidence as little as one year. How do I figure? Well…

…according to former teen idol David Cassidy, the biggest factor lies in the actual talent of the actor. Not the presence or absence of drugs—though Efron's and Cyrus' oh-so-clean livin' can't hurt—or stupid marriages to failed rappers.

Not PR stunts. Not the sexy photos of Zac rolling around in the mud with a naked lady, or Miley posing with a fruit-punch mouth and a bedsheet for Annie Liebovitz. Yes, those cheap japes can help a teen get to the next level. (Jessica Biel's sexy shoot for Gear, taken when she was 17, helped her escape the shackles of TV's Seventh Heaven, for example.) But the real test is the list you see on the IMDb—the projects that the actor has lined up, and whether those films showcase any sort of range or surprising choices.

In Cassidy's case, he was an actor and musician first—and a serious one—before he fell into his life-changing bubble-gum role in The Partridge Family. He later managed to reprove his talent via live theater before looping back to TV with ABC Family's upcoming Ruby and the Rockits.

Lohan fell into rehab hell before she could really show any range as an actor. But Witherspoon and Kirsten Dunst both mixed up their repertoires early and often as they transitioned from kid to adult.

And, as it turns out, that's exactly what Cyrus and Efron are now trying to do. As I've already discussed, Efron recently left a paying gig remaking the '80s dance hit Footloose so he could concentrate on more serious fare. Reportedly, Efron wants to star in a film adaptation of the downer novel The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud. Cyrus, meanwhile, starts shooting her own teen-with-issues flick this summer in a project written by Nicholas "The Notebook" Sparks.

If they both impress critics and audiences, that's a good first step toward a serious, decades-long career.

"The two of them have big names already, which helps," child actor turned casting professional Melissa DeLizia tells me. "If they keep making smart decisions and choosing things that broaden what people think of them, they have a good chance."

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