Yahoo Lifestyle I Thought I Knew Everything About “High School Musical,” But These Behind-The-Scenes Details Have Blown My Mind
On the evening before my 26th birthday, I told my housemate that all I wanted to do was watch High School Musical 3. It’s my favorite of the trilogy — not only because it's the best, IMO, but because I remember watching it in the theater shortly after my 10th birthday. (If that makes you feel old, join the club).
Like many of my fellow elder Gen Zs, the High School Musical movies were a massive part of my childhood, and for many years, I — now a professional pop culture expert — have claimed to know literally everything about the franchise.
That was until I read Disney High by Ashley Spencer — the book that details the making of the iconic shows and movies we grew up watching on Disney Channel — and I was left simply stunned by some of the behind-the-scenes details I discovered for the first time.
So, from on-set tensions to scrapped story ideas, here’s a roundup of the best behind-the-scenes details I learned about the making of the High School Musical movies, revealed by the people who were there.
1.The initial idea came from a somber Disney movie set around 9/11
Starring Hayden Panettiere, Tiger Cruise is a 2004 Disney Channel Original Movie about a group of families on a navy boat when the September 11 attacks took place. Though it seems unlikely, it was a lighthearted scene in the movie involving a group of kids having an impromptu jam session that inspired an executive producer named Bill Borden to pursue plans for a Disney Channel musical.
2.A real-life NFL star inspired Troy Bolton’s sports storyline, which was added to draw in more male viewers
In all three movies, Troy's constant battle between sports and musical theater is a central theme. This arc apparently came from an actual conversation between HSM creator and screenwriter Peter Barsocchini and NFL player Lynn Swann in the late 1960s, when the two then-classmates were traveling home from a school basketball game.
Swann told Barsocchini that he secretly “always wanted to dance ballet,” which, many years later, inspired the story of a high school sports star with a secret passion for the arts. (In the HSM script, Barsocchini switched out ballet for musical theater, as they felt ballet might be too challenging to make appealing to young boys).
3.The music was originally going to be covers of ‘70s and ‘80s hits
Although this was how HSM was initially pitched, Disney Channel bosses suggested that the creators should write original tracks instead because they weren’t willing to spend money on songs Disney didn’t own.
Ironically, the HSM creators apparently knew so little about writing musicals that they sought help from a book about Broadway.
4.Gabriella Montez was named after the writer’s daughter
Barsocchini also named Taylor McKessie after his stepdaughter.
5.It could’ve been Middle School Musical
When HSM was first pitched, Disney Channel's Head Of Original Movies, Michael Healy, instructed Barsocchini to change the setting to a middle school, as he felt younger characters fit better with Disney Channel’s demographic. However, Barsocchini refused and fought to keep the high school setting because he wanted the movie to feel aspirational for younger kids like his daughters.
6.High School Musical was just a placeholder title that stuck
From its conception, the movie's working title was “High School Musical Project.” When it came to thinking of an official name, the Disney Channel team came up with “pages and pages and pages” of different ideas. However, none worked as well as High School Musical — and that’s what they went with.
7.Kenny Ortega was kind of in his flop era when he signed on to direct
Despite working on acclaimed projects in the ‘80s, Kenny had landed himself in “movie jail” after directing several Disney projects that were considered flops. In the 2000s, he was desperate to get himself back into the Hollywood good books and thought that signing for a TV movie would be a good place to start.
Recalling the first time he read the HSM script, Kenny told the Hollywood Reporter in 2019: “I thought: ‘It’s under the radar, it’ll be invisible, and it’ll give me a chance to warm up and maybe prove myself again.’”
8.Corbin Bleu’s basketball skills needed help
Already an experienced child actor, Corbin was initially put forward to play Ryan Evans. However, the creators found he wasn’t the right fit and instead called him back to read for the part of Chad Danforth. The only issue with this? He did not have the sports experience to look like a convincing basketball star. “It wasn’t until the very first day of basketball practice in Utah where they went, ‘Oh shit. He can’t play,’” Corbin remembered in the book.
Fortunately, he was willing to put in the work. “There was never a moment that I didn’t have a basketball with me,” he added.
9.Jesse McCartney was first offered the part of Troy
Michael Loccisano / FilmMagic, Disney Channel / ©Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection
Before auditions even started, Jesse was the first person on the casting list for Tory. However, he apparently wound up rejecting the offer because he didn’t want to be seen as a “Disney star.”
10.Some executives weren't sold on Zac Efron, but he got the part anyway
He could act well and, unlike Corbin, could convincingly play basketball. But 17-year-old Zac’s singing skills were lacking a little, which left executives divided on whether or not to cast him.
However, when he read with Vanessa Hudgens, the pair had “magic” chemistry, and ultimately, Kenny decided that Zac was the one. Although, there were conditions…
11.Zac was instructed to close the gap in his front teeth before filming began
Kevin Winter / Getty Images, Disney Channel / ©Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection
When he auditioned, Zac’s tooth gap was apparently a concern among executives. After casting him, Kenny told the team: “You don’t like his teeth, we’ll fix his teeth.” In turn, Zac arrived on set in July 2005 with a new haircut and no gap between his front teeth.
12.Drew Seeley was too good at singing
It’s widely known that Zac did not do his own singing in HSM1 due to early concerns over his vocal range. Instead, most of Troy’s parts were sung in the first movie by Drew Seeley, who’d also auditioned for the role.
During his first recording session, Drew sang “Breaking Free” so perfectly that he was asked to tone down his vocals because he sounded too good to be an inexperienced high-schooler.
For context, Zac did his own signing in the second and third movies and has previously confessed that he was blindsided and upset by the fact that Drew’s vocals were used for the first film.
13.The East High Wildcats were originally Leopards
Though the movies are set at the fictional East High in New Mexico, the actual East High is in Utah. They kept the school name the same to save the time, money, and effort that would go into replacing all the signage while shooting. But what they did have to change was the school’s mascot.
The actual East High mascot is a Leopard, and the HSM creators were required to change this for the movie so that Disney could have full licensing ownership over any future merchandise. Unfortunately, there was already a pretty large statue of a Leopard cemented in the middle of the school, and so, for it to make sense in the film, the HSM team needed to switch the mascot for a similar-looking animal — which is how they landed on Wildcats.
14.Zac broke up with his girlfriend during rehearsals
Zac and Vanessa were the ultimate fairytale couple. They hit it off in auditions and dated throughout the making of all three HSM films until their eventual split in 2010. However, the pair apparently got off to a slightly rough start.
From their earliest chemistry reads, Vanessa was smitten with her costar, but Zac had a girlfriend and, therefore, had been rejecting her advances. This apparently caused tension behind the scenes during early rehearsals, and Zac sought advice from Chucky Klapow, the film’s choreographer, worrying that if he kept turning Vanessa down, it might ruin their onscreen chemistry.
In the book, Klapow recalled advising Zac to end things with his girlfriend and pursue a relationship with Vanessa — and the rest is history.
15.The president of Disney Channel cried while watching Zac and Vanessa perform “The Start Of Something New”
Rich Ross visited the HSM set in Utah to watch Zac and Vanessa shoot one of the movie’s opening scenes, in which Troy and Gabriella sing together for the first time at a ski lodge on New Year’s Eve. Standing beside Vanessa’s parents, Ross remembered that he “literally burst out crying.”
“And I’m not a crier,” he said, recalling that he’d witnessed something “perfect” in that moment. “It was them finding each other and us finding our footing.”
16.Bob Iger was so impressed with the early footage of HSM that he increased Disney Channel’s movie marketing budget
Today, Bob Iger is the CEO of The Walt Disney Company. However, in 2005, he was the president and chief operating officer — and seemingly one of the first people to sense that Disney Channel might have a hit on its hands with HSM.
After seeing early clips of the movie, Iger felt that it had outsized its potential and approved plans to up the movie’s marketing budget so that more viewers would know about it. That certainly paid off!
17.There was no official premiere for HSM1
Instead, cast and crew members were simply invited to a private screening on the Disney lot, where they dined out on cake and ice cream.
18.Apart from Ashley Tisdale, none of the actors had media training before promoting the first movie
Because HSM wasn’t expected to be the cultural phenomenon that it was, the Disney Channel team had not pre-planned a full-scale press tour for the movie — let alone media training for its stars.
After the film premiered, the actors did interviews with outlets like Teen Vogue and Seventeen and even performed on the Today show. However — with the exception of Ashley, who’d already made a name for herself on The Suite Life — none of them received proper media training, which, by today’s standards, is pretty wild.
According to Disney Channel’s former PR head, the stars were simply “briefed” with “message points” before each interview and were encouraged to tell anecdotes from the set.
19.Producers on HSM2 reprimanded Lucas Grabeel on set for saying he took a Vicodin
With much higher stakes on the second movie, Disney PR sent a round-the-clock team to the shoot to record BTS footage and keep a close eye on the stars — especially while reporters visited the set.
Lucas tore his meniscus while working on a different movie, and the injury only got worse during the making of HSM2, resulting in him needing a back and knee brace, as well as pain relief medication. In one on-set interview, Lucas mentioned to a reporter that he took a Vicodin and recalled being subsequently scolded by a producer who told him, “You can’t say that you’re taking Vicodin while you’re shooting a Disney movie.”
20.Kenny Ortega was apparently “out of control” while making HSM2
Scott Arneman, a prop master, said that working on HSM2 was so stressful that he stopped working with Disney for a decade. The stakes on the second movie were much higher, and in turn, Kenny had bigger expectations from everyone involved.
“Kenny was out of control,” Scott alleged in the book. “On the first film, he was totally reasonable and fun to work with. But by the second one, it was, ‘I want this! I want that! Make it happen.’ It went from fun to, ‘Oh, God, I’m going to cry I can’t wait till this night is over.’”
21.Zac and Vanessa once had a “yelling” fight on set
By the time the third movie was in production, Zac and Vanessa had been together for three years, and cracks in the relationship were apparently beginning to form.
Barsocchini recalled Vanessa once asking if she could use his office to speak to Zac. “Then I just hear yelling,” he said, adding that it was a “real blessing” that they managed to hold their off-screen romance together for all three movies.
22.Ashley and Lucas did not like each other — which is why they were so perfect
After initially thinking it was “the worst script” he’d ever read, Lucas reluctantly auditioned to play Troy before the casting directors decided he was a better for Ryan. This is where he was paired with Ashely, who took it upon herself to give him notes on his performance. Lucas recalled being enraged by the fact that Ashley “had the balls to walk up to another actor and tell them what to do in an audition.” As a result, he said he was “seething because of how much [he] disliked her.”
Ultimately, their mismatched personalities perfectly served Ryan and Sharpay’s sibling dynamic — and the roles were promptly theirs. And though Ashley told MTV in 2017 that they actually “hated each other” during filming, the former costars have since become good friends.
23.Zac’s rising stardom caused tension on set
New Line Cinema / ©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection, Jean Baptiste Lacroix / WireImage
After HSM1 exploded his celebrity status, Zac was cast as Link Larkin in Universal’s film adaptation of Hairspray, which he shot before HSM2. When he returned to East High to film the sequel, Zac was apparently more distant from his castmates and spent most of his time alone or with Vanessa.
Notably, this shift was somewhat reflected in an interview with the New York Times in March 2007, in which Zac said that he felt “no competition” with his HSM costars because he’d set his career aspirations “a little bit higher” than bagging roles in “teen music things” and “Disney TV movies.” “That’s the last thing I want to be doing at the moment,” he added.
24.Zac was apparently paid more than any of his costars for HSM3
Being that he was on his way to becoming a fully fledged A-lister, Zac was reportedly able to negotiate a $3 million contract for the third movie in 2008. This was allegedly more than any of his costars were paid and “worth more than fifty times the average” paycheck for a lead actor in a Disney Channel Original Movie.
25.Disney bosses pushed for HSM3 to be Halloween-themed
Because Halloween-themed Disney Channel Originals had been some of the network’s most popular releases, bosses thought it made sense to give HSM3 the supernatural treatment, too. However, this idea was quickly vetoed by the HSM team, who thought the suggestion was “outrageous.”
Executive producer Bill Borden recalled that the “insane” premise involved “magic books and time travel.” But that wasn’t the only scrapped idea for the third movie…
26.Kenny Ortega wanted to call it High School Musical 3-D
This is fairly self-explanatory. In 2008, 3-D movies were all the rage, and Kenny apparently thought about capitalizing on the trend by shooting the third and final HSM installment in 3-D. As we now know, this did not happen — and aren’t we all grateful?
27.Sarah Hyland almost played Tiara Gold — but then they decided she should be British
Walt Disney Co. / ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection, Nbc Newswire / NBC Newswire / NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Ultimately, the casting directors went with a British actor named Jemma McKenzie-Brown to play Tiara, Sharpay’s minion/nemesis. The HSM creators thought that making Tiara from England would help to capitalize on the franchise’s booming popularity in the UK (I'm British and can confirm it worked).
28.Taylor Lautner nearly played Jimmie Zara
Walt Disney Co. / ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection, Kevin Mazur / WireImage
Production on HSM3 started in early 2008, which was around the same time Taylor attended the open casting call that landed him a career-making role in Twilight. In light of this, it can be assumed that he probably lost the HSM part — which went to Matt Prokop — right before he was cast as Jacob Black. What a turn of events!
If you can believe it, this is only a sample of the many behind-the-scenes details that Ashley Spencer unpacks in her book. She spoke to over 150 people who were involved with Disney Channel throughout the ‘90s and ‘00s, and — as well as two High School Musical chapters — the book includes sections about all your faves from Hannah Montana and Lizzie McGuire to Camp Rock and The Suite Life.
Find Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire by Ashley Spencer here.
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