It’s officially been 20 years since the first High School Musical movie landed on Disney Channel.

This franchise altered my brain chemistry. These movies are something I genuinely enjoyed in my childhood.

I was 11, 12, and 13 years old when each of the three movies premiered.

These movies made a bold statement for me in my formative years. Themes of young love between Troy and Gabriella, bad bitch princess energy from Sharpay, and being a black girl who’s also super smart from Taylor stood out to me.

Songs like What I’ve Been Looking For, Start of Something New, and Gotta Go My Own Way are still on my playlist today.

So, in honor of High School Musical’s 20 year anniversary, here are 20 facts, details, and elements you might not already know about the beloved franchise.

For starters, did you know Cassie Steele was originally supposed to play Gabriella instead of Vanessa Hudgens? You might recognize Cassie from Degrassi: The Next Generation, same show Drake was on. Cassie plays Manny Santos on Degrassi. She actually would have been great as Gabriella too, since she also has an incredible singing voice, and she sings a lot on Degrassi. But this definitely worked out the way it should have because Vanessa was undeniably perfect as Gabriella, and this is the role that put Vanessa on the map. Cassie had already made a name for herself on Degrassi by that point. And Degrassi is actually the reason why Cassie had to drop out of High School Musical. Scheduling conflicts simply didn’t allow her to film both.

And the second fact is that Naya Rivera actually auditioned for the role of Gabriella as well. Naya eventually went on to land a role in Glee as an LGBTQ cheerleader named Santana Lopez. Naya’s role was crucial for the LGBTQ community since it shed light on loving yourself and accepting yourself as you are. Naya really stepped up to the plate in Glee, and in my opinion, that was where she was meant to be. It was perfect for her. So this truly ended up working out as it was supposed to as well. Scheduling wise, the High School Musical movies came out in 2006, 2007, and 2008. And Glee didn’t premiere until 2009, so they’re technically wouldn’t have been a conflict there for Naya who also has a beautiful singing voice that she showcased in Glee. However, again, I really do strongly feel that Vanessa was perfectly suited for playing Gabriella.

Third, Vanessa Hudgens’ nude photo leak scandal of 2007 happened around the time the second High School Musical movie was being filmed and released. The photos leaked without her permission, and according to her 2020 interview with Cosmopolitan, the experience was “traumatizing.” She said, “It’s really fucked up that people feel like they’re entitled enough to share something that personal with the world. As an actor, you completely lose all grip of your own privacy and it’s really sad.“ Vanessa was forced to apologize for the scandal back then, but thankfully times have changed. If this were to have happened today, she would not have been forced to apologize. She was the one who was violated because some disgusting pervert hacked into her devices and leaked those photos to the world. The photos were taken privately and intimately for her boyfriend at the time, Zac Efron. The only person who should have laid eyes on those photos with Zac Efron. I’m honestly extremely relieved that Vanessa wasn’t punished to the point of getting fired by Disney Channel and they still allowed her to continue filming the third movie of the franchise. Back then, Disney Channel stars were constantly being slut shamed for small things. For example, Bella Thorne was allegedly blacklisted from future Disney Channel projects because she posted bikini pictures on social media while she was filming Shake it Up with Zendaya. So if that serves as any context, I am extremely grateful Vanessa wasn’t fired from Disney Channel.

Fourth, Ashley Tisdale and Lucas Grabeel were not friendly on the set of High School Musical at the beginning. They once had a slight feud between them, which is kind of ironic since they played on-screen twin siblings, and siblings are known to fight with each other in real life. The good news it that eventually, they did start getting along better. But Lucas opened up about working with her during the MegaCon convention last year saying, “I was paired with Ashley and she really pissed me off. This girl. I mean this is why she got the job. She was so Sharpay. She literally… We did the scene, we came out, and she’s like, hey so I really wanna like rehearse and go over it again.“ He went on to explain that he was ready to end the workday and go home, but she insisted that they keep going over their scenes repetitively. Years have passed since they finished filming the movies, and they are on much better terms with each other now.

Fifth. They have been recent rumors about a feud between Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens as recently as 2024 based on the fact that Ashley continued to maintain her friendship with Vanessa‘s ex-boyfriend Austin Butler. But Ashley kinda sorta shut down feud rumors while interviewing on Bravo‘s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. He asked her if she still hangs out with Vanessa and she said, “I haven’t seen her in a long time. Obviously she’s working, I’m working, I have a daughter. So it’s like you know, she has a full-time job.“ So although she didn’t fully squash the narrative of a feud, she minimized it to the fact that they both have busy work schedules. Once upon a time, back in the day while they were filming the High School Musical movies, they seemed to have a really solid friendship off camera.

Sixth. According to the New York Times, one of the big reasons Vanessa agreed to film Spring Breakers, which is arguably one of the edgiest movies of her career, is that she was ready to transition out of children’s entertainment and she wanted to distance herself from her squeaky clean Disney Channel image that had been developed from her time filming High School Musical movies. Selena Gomez agreed to film the movie for similar reasons. Spring Breakers came out in 2012, about four years after the last High School Musical premiered. It gave Vanessa‘s career a brand new push in a different direction.

Seventh, Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron played on-screen lovers in the movies and actually dated for five years in real life while filming. They broke up in 2010, but personally, as a kiddo watching them in the movies, they honestly made me believe true love really existed. Interestingly enough, the director of the movies (Kenny Ortega) was concerned about Vanessa and Zac dating in real life because they had a fight with each other on set and it made him hypervigilant and concerned about what could possibly go wrong if the relationship fell apart before the franchise was over. Vanessa told The Hollywood Reporter, “I remember one time we did have a fight and it was while we were at rehearsals. I remember Kenny Ortega coming around the corner with the most concerned look on his face like, oh no, is our movie going to fall apart right now?” Obviously, they kept their relationship going strong until after the third movie premiered.

8th. Vanessa was about to audition for American Idol before she auditioned for High School Musical. If Vanessa brought her powerhouse vocals to American Idol, there’s a huge chance she would have gone far, but selfishly, I’m really glad she skipped out on that audition and went for High School Musical instead. She was perfect as Gabriella in my book.

9th. Selena Gomez could have starred in High School Musical 3 as Sharpe’s rival, Tiara Gold, but she turned it down. A lesser known actress named Jemma Mckenzie-Brown ended up snagging the part. And when Selena was directly asked why she rejected it, she plainly said, “I passed on it because I didn’t want to do it. After Disney, I want to be taken seriously as an actress for many years.” Selena was ready to distance herself from Disney Channel after Wizards of Waverly Place, so it makes sense that she didn’t want to have any ties to High School Musical.

10th. Miley Cyrus, on the other hand, didn’t mind making a quick appearance in the High School Musical franchise though. She had a brief cameo in High School Musical 2 as one of the party people enjoying the pool party at the end of the film. She blended in with other backup dancers. Miley was at the height of her Disney Channel fame when she filmed that cameo in 2007, because season 2 of Hannah Montana was making waves at the time.

10th. Lucas Grabeel originally auditioned for Troy Bolton before he was cast as Ryan Evans. I absolutely love Lucas Grabeel, but I feel like he made so much more sense as Ryan instead of Troy. Troy was your all American, masculine, athletic type of guy. Lucas played the artsy choreographer role of Ryan much more smoothly. In my opinion.

11th. Ashley Tisdale fried her hair while playing Sharpay. According to Cosmopolitan, Sharpay was the type of character who needed to rock a brighter and lighter shade of blonde than most. Ashley explained, “I was light blonde and they put in these low lights. And I thought, whoa this is not Sharpay. I ran to Kenny Ortega and was like, this isn’t right. He agreed. But we were supposed to film the next day. So we just bleached my hair and it absolutely fried. I have thick hair, so we had to put extensions up to the root to match the thickness and people thought I was wearing wigs in the film.“ I will admit as a child viewer, I really couldn’t tell that there was anything wrong with her hair. But as an adult viewer, you can kind of see that her hair is giving super lifted volume that almost kinda looks like a wig. It was actually her real hair that had been damaged for the role. Ariana Grande actually went through the same thing while filming as Cat Valentine on Nickelodeon since they insisted she rocked bright red hair, which was far from her natural brunette hair color.

12th. Can I Have This Dance is considered the top song from the entire High School Musical franchise of all time since it has more streams than every other song from the movies, by far. Can I Have This Dance has over 225 million streams on Spotify as of this publication. On a personal note, I heavily considered learning the choreography for this song with my husband for our wedding day, but we ended up not having enough time to dedicate to that process. But clearly, I think the song is absolutely beautiful.

14th. The second most popular song from the franchise is We’re All in This Together with over 169 million Spotify streams. Some people might consider this song incredibly corny, but the song is about unity, friendship, and coming together to become the best version of yourself, which is probably why this song resonates with so many people and is still so heavily streamed today. This song really encompasses the overall energy of High School Musical.

15th. It’s old news that Zac Efron got a little vocal help from Drew Seeley in the first High School Musical movie. Most people already know that the producers blended Drew Seely and Zac Efron’s voices for the first movie since they really wanted Zac to play the role, but his singing skills weren’t as strong as he needed to be. But do you know how Drew actually felt about the way that whole thing played out? According to E! News, he said, “I was a good five or six years older than Vanessa. So in my mind, that had something to do with it. I probably didn’t look right with the lineup of everybody else, and also Zac is a very talented actor and was great in the role. So I think they did it right.” Drew Seeley is seriously a stand-up guy, I have so much respect for him. And he has a great singing voice. His age difference from Vanessa was most likely one of the biggest factors blocking him from actually playing Troy Bolton. He went on to play Selena Gomez’s love interest in Another Cinderella Story in 2008, where he had a chance to show off his singing skills.

16th. Monique Coleman, who played Taylor McKessie in the movies, was actually quite a bit older than the rest of her cast mates when filming the franchise. However, none of us seemed to notice when the movies came out. She was actually 25 years old in the first movie!

17th. Zac Efron admitted that he didn’t know how to dance before filming the first High School Musical movie. He had to learn basic moves and more intense choreo for the role to keep up with everyone else.

18th. On that note, Ashley Tisdale also revealed didn’t have any dance experience before High School Musical either. She certainly brought her skills up to speed because it’s hard to notice that she didn’t have any experience of her own before filming.

19th. Corbin Bleu originally auditioned for the role of Ryan Evans. Again, the casting worked out exactly as it should have because Corbin pulled off the dooshy athlete role of Troy‘s best friend better than he would have pulled off the role of Ryan… By far, in my opinion.

20th. Ashley Tisdale made claims that Sharpay was never actually intended to be the “popular girl“ in the franchise. In June 2025, Ashley spoke with People Magazine saying, “When I played Sharpay, I think that’s probably what made her so funny. That Sharpay truly thought she was the popular girl in school. I thought Sharpay was popular and I played it like she was popular. What’s so funny is that she’s not the popular girl. She’s the drama queen.” Personally, when I watched these movies as a kid, I definitely believe Sharpay was the popular girl on campus. But if you really think about it, theater geeks are never usually considered the most popular, so Ashley‘s analysis of this makes a lot of sense to me. One thing I do strongly respect about Sharpay’s character is her ambition and the fact that she was such a go-getter who was passionate about achieving her dreams.

Thanks for watching!