Corbin Bleu, Lucas Grabeel Discuss Success of ‘High School Musical’

For Lucas Grabeel and Corbin Bleu, fame was “overnight” following the success of the first High School Musical film, which premiered in 2006.

Grabeel, now 40, was 20 at the time of the first film. Bleu, now 35, was just 15. During a panel discussion at the MegaCon fan convention in Orlando, the two spoke about how the film’s success skyrocketed them and their castmates to fame.

“When it initially happened, I do remember it was one day to the next,” Bleu said of grappling with being recognized while out in public.

He added that when the movie first aired in 2006, he was in Hawaii shooting the television show Flight 29 Down.

“The premiere of High School Musical happened while we were filming the second season of that show and, of course, my cast was all excited, and we set up a projector and watched the movie and it was fun,” he said. “And that weekend, we went to this big carnival — the whole island of Oahu goes to this thing. And we got mobbed.”

Bleu added that, while he had begun working as an actor at just two years old and had been in other projects before High School Musical, the film’s popularity was unlike anything he had dealt with prior.

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“I had maybe had one or two people come up to me for an autograph before, but nothing like this. And I was with my little 5’3″ mother, and people were actually grabbing me and jumping into the car. And I remember my mom looked at me and just sang: ‘Welcome to your life.’ ”

Grabeel added that the film’s success was “overnight.”

“I was living in a moldy apartment, barely able to pay my bills, and I get a call from my manager saying, ‘Hey, they want you to go to New York tomorrow to do Good Morning America and The Today Show.’ It was literally like that. The next day, you’re doing interviews and someone’s like, ‘So, how does it feel to be a role model for children all across the world?’ ”

Grabeel continued: “It was too much for me. Too much, too fast. It was scary. I didn’t feel like I deserved it. Coming from a small town, I didn’t think I’d be even a little bit famous, let alone have that kind of magnifying glass or attention.”

The film marked its 19th anniversary in January, though its stars hardly stopped, reuniting again in 2007 for High School Musical 2 and again in 2008 for High School Musical 3: Senior Year. In the years since, a new class has taken over East High in Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, on which several of the original stars have appeared.

Over time, Grabeel acknowledged, that attention waned — but with more films and, later, renewed interest in the show via younger generations and social media, the cast was able to connect with a new crop of fans.

“All of these people coming up and telling you over and over how amazing you are, it’s a crazy amazing thing,” he said. “Then it changed and it warped and we all thought it would go away, and then it came back…. I have more and more appreciation for being a part of this project every single day.”