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Vanessa Hudgens is looking back at the pairing that made High School Musical such a hit.
The actress, 36, recently appeared on the Magical Rewind podcast, reflecting on the casting process for her role as Gabriella with host Bart Johnson, who played Coach Jack Bolton in the film series.
“I guess I was 15. I had done a pilot for Disney Channel called The Bus Life with Keke Palmer. It didn’t get picked up, and I had auditioned for Disney a bunch,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘It’s never gonna happen for me.’ And this audition came up for High School Musical, and I was like, ‘I don’t wanna go. I’m not gonna get it.’ ”
“I went in begrudgingly and did the audition. It was a normal audition,” she continued. “I don’t even remember what I sang…I think maybe I sang ‘Angels’ by Jessica Simpson or ‘Reflection’ from Mulan and did one of the scenes and then ended up getting a callback.”
As the callbacks continued and the groups narrowed down, she said the actors “got mixed and matched with a bunch of people.”
“I got mixed up and I think I got put with Zac [Efron] right away,” she added.
Efron ended up being the perfect Troy to her Gabriella.
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“Me and Zac did the scene together. I sang with him. I feel like he got paired up with somebody else as well. I don’t know. It all seems like such a blur,” she continued. “And then I feel like a few weeks after that, I got the final callback, and it was, like, a final pairing where there was one other girl there for Gabriella, one other guy there for Troy, and we, like, swapped, mixed and matched. And that was it.”
“I got the call, and they were like, ‘We want you to do it.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god. It’s finally happening!'” she added.
The casting couldn’t have been more spot-on. The two teens fell in love on set of the first film, and when the Disney Channel flick premiered in 2006, they instantly became teen icons. Their relationship blossomed as millions of fans watched their every move and plastered posters up on their bedroom walls.
DISNEY CHANNEL/FRED HAYES
The concept of the musical movie was especially exciting for Hudgens — and the “cute” costar didn’t hurt, either.
“I grew up doing theater. I did my first film when I was 13 years old. I had come off of this big studio film called Thunderbirds, which had shot in London for, like, six months. The wheels were turning,” she recalled. “But it was very exciting because coming from, like, a musical theater background, that is and still is where my heart remains. So I was very excited.”
“And then, of course, like, I was a child and paired with this boy, and I was like, ‘Oh my god. He’s so cute.’ So, like, the chemistry was so real,” she admitted with a laugh.
Michael Tran/FilmMagic
Johnson noted their behind-the-scenes flirtation must have helped them communicate their on-screen romance to an audience, to which Hudgens said, “It really does. Especially when you’re young and it’s all sweet and innocent.”
Efron and Hudgens stuck by each other’s sides through all three High School Musical films and went on to support each other as their careers expanded beyond the halls of East High. Although they called it quits in 2010 and lost touch, the former couple has had nothing but good things to say about each other in the years since.
