Yahoo Lifestyle Zac Efron’s Reaction To An 18-Year-Old “High School Musical” Clip Has Prompted Praise, And Here’s Why
As if we couldn’t love Zac Efron more, his latest comments about High School Musical have sparked widespread praise online.
In case you missed it, Zac recently sat down with Vanity Fair to rewatch some of his old movies — including a clip of himself performing as the one and only Troy Bolton in the first High School Musical film, which came out in 2006.
The scene in question was his performance of “Get’cha Head In The Game,” which, as I’m sure you’ll probably recall, involves a lot of technical basketball choreography. And while rewatching, Zac quickly noted that his stunts were all his own.
“I really drilled all those shots. No CGI in there. I don’t think we had the budget for that,” he joked. “So that makes me feel good.”
Going into more detail about the shooting process, Zac recalled the complicated choreography and how “incredibly motivated” he and his co-stars were to execute the scene flawlessly — which they eventually did.
“Not many people know this, but High School Musical was just a made-for-TV movie, and it was very small, so we had a very condensed shooting schedule and very limited rehearsal time,” he said, giving a shoutout to director Kenny Ortega, who he said “had big ambitions” for the musical movie.
“I think he was pleasantly surprised when all the boys were excited to not only fulfill what he wanted but to take it one step further,” he added.
Zac revealed that he and his co-stars — including Corbin Bleu, who played Chad — were only afforded about “two days” of practice to nail the iconic basketball dribbling sequence in the number.
“We probably had maybe two three-hour rehearsals with basketballs. After five takes, we nailed it. We got it all in one,” he said, remembering that that was the first time he realized the film was destined for greatness.
“They didn’t cut from start to finish, and all of us were blown away. And I think that was the first time all of us went, ‘Is this gonna be cool?’” he recalled. “It was a really special moment, and I’m still just proud of all those guys for doing that 'cause it was hard… I love you, Kenny. I miss you guys.”
Of course, Zac and his co-stars were right. High School Musical turned out to be very cool indeed. The first airing of the movie on Disney Channel brought in 7.7 million viewers, breaking the record for the highest ratings for any telecast ever on the network at the time.
High School Musical 2 came out the following year and was an even bigger success, with 18.6 million viewers tuning in for the Disney Channel premiere in August 2007.
In 2008 things stepped up another level with High School Musical 3: Senior Year, which grossed over $250 million worldwide as the first of the three movies to be released in theaters.
The billion-dollar movie franchise launched Zac’s career into a new stratosphere, turning him into the star he is today. Now, in a world where many male actors distance themselves from earlier work in hopes of being taken more seriously as performers, fans love that Zac praises HSM rather than minimizing it.
Reacting to the Vanity Fair video, a post on X with over 174,000 likes highlighted Zac’s “commitment to always speaking highly” of the franchise instead of disregarding it as “some embarrassing thing he did as a teenager.”
Zac efron’s commitment to always speaking highly of high school musical and not treating it as some embarrassing thing he did as a teenager is so charming to me
— alex 💭 ⁷ (@nothnghppens) July 2, 2024
Many others echoed this sentiment, saying: “It's awesome when celebs embrace their past annd [sic] keep it real.”
“That’s one thing I’ll always like about this dude. He’s respectful. He never brings down old projects or his coworkers,” another wrote.
“i LOVE hearing him talk about HSM, that was my generations first introduction to Zac so it’s really exciting to hear him have such fond and good memories,” added someone else.
In a testament to HSM’s lasting cultural impact, one fan hilariously compared Zac watching himself in the first movie to “leonardo da vinci watching himself paint the mona lisa,” amassing more than 125,000 likes.
“extremely important day to everyone who lives in between millennial and gen z,” another person commented.
So, with all that love, it sounds like the world is ready for Zac to re-enter his musical era… You can watch the full Vanity Fair video here.
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