We shot 'High School Musical' in eight weeks. I spent longer rehearsing for 'Hairspray' than filming 'High School Musical'.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.
I was cast in a film toward the end of high school. Even then, I wasn't sure.
I saw 'Hairspray' at the Pantages in L.A. It came to the Pantages right before I did the movie, and just being in New York sometimes and seeing the marquees and everything like that, I'm like, 'I really, really have to go experience a Broadway play.'
That's why I had to leave Hair on Broadway, because I did it for about a year, and one night I was doing the show, and I realized, well, this is not real. I told the director. He says, man, it was a killer show tonight.
I started making little short films with friends, and then I decided I wanted to get into the school play in high school.
High School Musical has been a blessing and a gift.
We just started filming, and after every scene was shot, we had a rehearsal for the next one.
'Hairspray' was a movie turned Broadway musical turned Hollywood remake, and that is the 'Lion King' circle of life as we know it in Times Square, the creative loop that swings for the stars and sometimes crashes into the upper deck.
Usually, you can shoot a movie in 10 or 12 weeks.
There was no theater in my high school. I think even our art program was cut - it was so bad. I didn't even know that was a possibility in college or in high school; I hadn't even thought of it. It was pretty negligent. My father has run a bulldozer all of his life, and my mom is in real estate.