Behind the scenes of...High School MusicalHey kids, let's put on a show! That's just what the Disney Channel did with the airing of High School Musical on January 20, 2006.
It's a musical comedy set in a too-cool high school! With tones of Grease and Romeo and Juliet, the TV movie focuses on a popular basketball player (Zac Efron) and a brainiac new student (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) who share a love of singing. When they audition for the school musical, sparks fly—romantically for them and socially for the rest of the school.
Scholastic News Online was able to sit down with the stars of High School Musical, so check out what they have to say!
SN: We know you from dramas like Summerland. Did you have any experience with musicals?
Zac: I began in musical theater. I did Grease; I was Harold Hill in The Music Man. I had it easier than some guys at the High School Musical audition—some of them were passing out! It was Broadway style, seven and a half hours of dancing, singing, and acting. And then we had to play basketball. I was probably weakest at that but I passed—though I didn't find out I got the part for a week and a half.SN: Sounds grueling!
Zac: Yeah, and then we had two weeks of intense dancing, acting, singing, and basketball rehearsals along with strange stretching [exercises] and things I'd never heard of before. We'd wake up at six in the morning and work until six at night. It was a very long day, but by the end I'd sustained so many injuries and was so sore but so much better than I was before. I learned more in those two weeks than I'd learned in the previous years. Every second of it was worth it.SN: Your character is a superstar athlete who shocks everyone by wanting to star in the musical. Do you relate?
Zac: A little bit, but I was never the cool kid. There's a lot of peer pressure and you have to take everything you hear with a grain of salt and follow your instincts.SN: Was it like summer camp for actors, all of you staying in the same hotel?
Zac: Exactly! We became fast friends, and when it was over, everyone was devastated. It was so hard not to be able to go to the hotel room next door and knock. I made a lot of good friends, and we see each other all the time. If I could go back and do it again I'd do it in a heartbeat.SN: How do you balance acting and school?
Zac: My priority had always been school first, acting second. Then acting took off and school got put a bit on the back burner, but not too much I have a really high grade point average. But if I hadn't taken the acting route I think I might have been valedictorian. I've applied to USC and UCLA.SN: What if both accept you?
Zac: I'll probably go with USC. They have a really good film program.SN: What will kids learn from watching this movie?
Zac: The message from the movie is that you have to be yourself, walk your own path. Don't listen to all the pressures that come from the outside world. Troy starts off as this hotshot stud, but he's been given that name by his peers—it's not really who he is. By the end of the movie he discovers he can be himself and have just as much fun. He goes through this great transformation. By the end of the movie he's even cooler.SN: Do you think there will be a sequel to High School Musical?
Zac: They're talking about it!From Scholastic News