Ashley Tisdale plays the arrogant, domineering drama queen, Sharpay Evans, in High School Musical 3: Senior Year, which is still drawing the teens and tweens in droves to the movie theaters.
The Disney produced film has so far earned $209.8 million worldwide as of 11/23/2008 as the film continues to captivate its young audiences.
Ashley recently dropped her blonde bombshell look for a more serious brunette style. In this video interview, she chats about working for the Disney Channel and about her friendship with co-stars Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, who portray Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez in the film.
Ashley also dishes about her Hollywood neighbors, the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus.
In a TV interview Monique Coleman talks about film making, romance and High School Musical 3: Senior Year. Since HSM3 has not slowed down much at the box office, we thought we should see what one of the films' stars, one who is not interviewed quite as much as Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens are, has to say about the film trilogy.
Monique, who turns 28 years old on November 13th, plays Taylor McKessie in the HSM trilogy. Taylor is the best friend of the brainy Gabriella Montez, who is played by Vanessa Hudgens.
Even though she is 28, Monique can easily pass for a high school senior, which is essential for her role since HSM takes place at East High School.
Monique boasts an extensive singing and dance background so she definitely fits right in with the rest of the HSM cast. Monique also insists that she is not dating Corbin Bleu, like so many of the tabloids claim.
Teen heartthrob and movie star Zac Efron was attacked in London on Wednesday night by what some described as a "deranged fan."
Zac, the star of Disney's High School Musical (HSM) series was exiting the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London's West End theater district with his long time girl friend and HSM co-star, Vanessa Hudgens. They had just watchedRain Man starring Josh Hartnett.
Suddenly an unlikely fan, a spectacled middle-aged man, began shouting loudly and pointing his finger at Zac. The man, who was quite close to Zac at the time, then lunged for Zac and tried to grab either Zac or his hair.
Fortunately for Zac, a security guard was near enough to step in the way of the attacking man. The guard placed himself between the man and Zac so the hot heartthrob was able to avoid any injury.
Had the security guard not been so close, there is no telling what might have happened. The attacker carried a laptop computer under his left arm and reached for Zac with his right.
Zac is used to throngs of teen-age girls swooning and screaming at him whenever he is seen in public, so the thought of a middle-aged man lunging at him is not something Zac is used to or probably cares to get used to.
It was definitely a taste of the dark side for Zac because one never knows what one lone man is capable of when he is near a celebrity. Thoughts of the death of John Lennon drift in when something like this happens.
According to one witness to the incident, "Some guy was just stood (sic) near the door where Zac and Vanessa emerged.
"He just reached over and grabbed the side of Zac's head. There was no provocation. It all turned into a bit of a mess.
"He was shouting all kinds of things at Zac. Their security team eventually dealt with it. They had to bundle Zac into a car, but at one point it looked as though the man was going to be pushed into it with him."
Zac was unhurt during the incident, and the man was initially held by the security staff but was then released. No one reported the attack to the police, which means that the security staff apparently believed that the man was not really so "deranged" after all.
It appears that the incident did not ruffle the young film star who portrays Troy Bolton in High School Musical 3, which is to be released in US theaters on October 24th.
Zac, Vanessa, Ashley Tisdale and Corbin Bleu are all in the cast of High School Musical 3, and they were all in London for the film's London premiere, which occurred Tuesday night.
Zac, Vanessa and entourage were spotted eating together at the Floridita restaurant in Soho later that evening.
One of the restaurant's patrons said Zac "was quite relaxed and looked like he was enjoying himself."
"Some of them were dancing to salsa music, so they must have put the scuffle out of their minds."
The release of High School Musical 3: Senior Year in theaters is not far off. The date to remember is October 24th in case you live on some other planet than good ol' planet Earth and were not aware of the upcoming release.
With the movie's release so near, we decided to do a release of our own of some recently discovered photos of the cast and provide a little info to boot. Most of the photos are newer, but there are a few that we simply have not published before now.
Of course, you already know that the main cast from the two previous releases will be starring in HSM3, and Disney is including 10 new songs in the film.
Zac Efron will again play Troy Bolton, Vanessa Hudgens will star as Gabriella Montez, Ashley Tisdale appears as Sharpay Evans and Lucas Grabeel plays Ryan Evans, Sharpay's brother.
All of the cast have been quoted in interviews that this release of HSM3 will be much bigger and offer many more whistles and bells than the other two productions, which were released on the Disney channel rather than in theaters, as you undoubtedly know.
To get started we have added the trailer from HSM3 just in case you have somehow missed seeing it:
And we have found many newly released photos of the cast. Below is a composite of Zac Efron when he was caught romping on the beach.
Next is Zac Efron as he will appear on the cover of Teen Vogue magazine in the October 2008 issue along with a couple of the runner up cover photos.
Then we have a couple of Vanessa:
Here are Zac and Vanessa in a few racy shots taken at the beach:
Vanessa looks especially good in that gray bikini.
Finally there are several shots from Ashley Tisdale's 23rd birthday party. Ashley was born on July 2, 1985:
High School Musical 3: Senior Year is scheduled to hit the big screen in October, and filming is scheduled to be completed by the end of June. But some of us just cannot wait that long.
So we thought we would share a few tidbits about how filming is going, starting with a video about HSM3 behind the scenes.
At the MTV Movie AwardsPeople magazine interviewed Zac Efron, who plays Troy Bolton in HSM3 and who also won an MTV movie award for best breakthrough performance for his role as the heartthrob, Link Larkin, in the movie, Hairspray.
Zac said it is smooth sailing on the HSM3 set. "When I got there everyone was calm, collected. They were working really hard," Efron said.
"It felt like the first two movies all over again. We just kind of can't go wrong with Kenny Ortega as our director and leader and our great cast and crew. We've got no squabbles to get through."
People asked Zac about the difference between making movies for the Disney Channel and for what will most likely be a blockbuster hit in movie theaters.
“Everything's been stepped up a few notches, all the dances, and I think the songs are pretty catchy this time around," said Zac.
"And it's our senior year, so we've got graduation and prom to look forward to. All fun things to have in a movie.”
As for the fairy tale romance between Zac and his co-star in HSM3, Vanessa Hudgens, who plays the brainy Gabriella Montez, it is still going strong. Zac and Vanessa were seen together at a Utah Jazz basketball game during a break from filming HSM3.
They certainly look cozy in the photo.
Vanessa is hitting the big time in stride, having been named as one of People Magazine's 100 most beautiful people of 2008. She showed up for the People photo shoot sans makeup.
Said Vanessa, “just recently I’ve learned to be okay with myself without wearing makeup…I started taking care of my skin and realized I didn’t need as much as I thought I did.”
Vanessa has also released her new album, Identified. Vanessa revealed, “This time I did what I wanted to do. I always had a knack for a more soulful, jazzy sound, so right off the bat I wanted to kind of let loose, and come up with a sound no one has heard from me before.”
HSM3 director is Kenny Ortega, who also directed both of the previous HSMs.
Ortega gives credit for his skills to his mentor, Gene Kelly. Said Ortega, “one great thing I learned from Gene Kelly was how to design choreography for the camera versus designing choreography for the stage. Gene used to say there should be a raison d’etre—a reason for being. What’s at the center of everything?”
Our second video is an interview by Access Hollywood with Vanessa Hudgens on the set of HMS3:
Disney has announced that there will be a High School Musical 4. Disney Channel Worldwide President Rich Ross told MTV, "We are writing High School Musical 4."
Ross said that Disney may not convince the complete original cast to return for a fourth go at HSM. "Are we going to have all the cast back? Probably not. Will we have some of them? I hope so."
Video #3 is an interview by Access Hollywood with Ashley Tisdale, who plays Sharpay, on the set of HMS3:
Zac Efron told The Rolling Stone in the summer of 2007 that he was not interested in any more HSM after the coming third installment. He prefered to move on to something new.
"If I had to hear the High School Musical songs anymore," he confessed, "I probably would have jumped off something very tall."
Although HSM may have countless sequels, Zac said he'd "hopefully not" do many more.
Currently, it appears that very few of the cast intend to return to East High for HSM4. “This is probably going to be the last one for a lot of the cast,” Zac told MTV. “It’s graduation, a lot of us have to move on.”
Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron have a fairy tale love story that has captured the hearts of teenagers and pre-teens worldwide.
They met when they both starred in High School Musical (HSM), which was a blockbuster movie on the Disney Channel. Vanessa played the starring role of Gabriella Montez and Zac played opposite her starring as Troy Bolton.
Gabriella and Troy share a love interest in HSM similar to Vanessa and Zac in real life. Troy is the high school's sports hero and Gabriella is a bright student who transferred to East High.
Although Vanessa and Zac are constantly seen together in Los Angeles, blogheads are continually speculating that their romance is over, but they have always been wrong.
The blockbusters High School Musical 1 and 2 have made stars of Vanessa and Zac, and they are among the most searched celebrities on the Internet. They are also followed everywhere by the paparazzi.
And it only promises to get bigger and better for the couple, for Disney has started production on High School Musical 3, which is going to be premiered in theaters rather than just the Disney Channel. The couple and HSM are so big that the number of views of their videos on Youtube reach into the tens of millions, which is off the charts.
Many of the photos on this page were taken from Zac and Vanessa's vacation in Hawaii last year. Zac said that a paparazzo caught him off guard because Zac had not yet realized that the couple was so high on the paparazzi radar.
“At that point it (his stardom) was inconceivable,” Zac said. “I had no idea that anyone could ever care. That happens to, like, big stars. I woke up and my dad told me that I was in a newspaper on the beach, (and) he made fun of me. He said I was ‘frolicking.’”
It appears that the paparazzo made a small fortune on the photos. Zac said that while they were still on vacation in Hawaii, “the photographer left me a note with a disc of all the pictures, and on the note it said, ‘Thanks for the Range Rover!’”
The following video stars Zac and Vanessa and is from High School Musical 2. It is entitled "You are the Music in Me."
20-year-old Zac Efron, the male lead in Disney’s High School Musical, High School Musical 2, and the upcoming theatrical release of High School Musical 3, was eating breakfast in a greasy diner in Tolucsa Lake, California.
"This is my favorite place to eat breakfast, because you don't see the SUVs with the blacked-out windows here," said Zac.
While hiding his celebrity behind mirrored sunglasses and a brown stocking cap, Zac discussed his strategy for success. "As long as I stay boring, I think I'll be fine."
Stay boring? Seriously?
“Yeah, seriously,” he says. “I'm going to try.”
Between bites of scrambled eggs and brown rice Zac almost apologized for his new found Hollywood success. "I've never done interviews like this before," he said. "I'm still so new to this, it's literally a one-in-a-million chance that I'm here.”
He is trying hard to be a normal 20-year-old in a town where the gossip media take no prisoners. Any tweener that has seen HSM1 and 2, which is most of them, knows that Zac Efron is no normal 20-year-old.
HSM1 and 2 are arguably the most watched made for television movies in history. The target market is the pre-teen set, and that group of kids refuses to let Zac be any kind of normal.
The term Hollywood idol doesn’t do him justice. He has become a tween heartthrob, and the tweens won’t let him forget it.
The HSM CD is the biggest selling CD of 2006, and Zac plays Troy Bolton, who acts, sings and dances his way into the hearts of his fans, although Zac was not allowed to do the actual singing in HSM1.
"I didn't even sing on the first album," he admits. "It wasn't my voice in the movie. Even though I wanted to do it."
HSM2, however, is all Zac, including the singing.
Troy is the high school jock who is romantically linked to Gabriella Montez, a brainy transfer student, played by the gorgeous Vanessa Hudgens. Ironically, Zac and Vanessa are also romantically linked in real life too.
Watch and listen to Zac in his own words in the video below.
Zac is already tiring of his role in HSM and seems to be itching to move on to other things.
"If I had to hear the High School Musical songs anymore," he confesses, "I probably would have jumped off something very tall."
Although HSM may have countless sequels, Zac said he'd "hopefully not" do many more.
Thankfully, to all of his fans, Zac is signed and primed to star in HSM3, which begins production in January, 2008.
While down under in Australia recently Vanessa Hudgens talked about show business, celebrities and High School Musical 3.
Vanessa said that she has always wanted to be an entertainer, but she would rather skip the celebrity part.
“I became an actress and started singing and dancing because I truly loved it,” said Vanessa. “I did it because I genuinely enjoy doing it.”
“I did not want to be a celebrity. … I think fame is just something that comes along when you are in something that is such a success.”
"Fame is an interesting thing but my fans are very supportive and I thank them so much."
"It is a dog-eat-dog world," said the singer. "People want to know about people's business; no one really has a sense of privacy because everyone is trying to get into your business.
"And people become jaded and infatuated with Hollywood. I think it happens to a lot of celebrities and it messes with their head."
Vanessa said the extra attention is not for her. "I don't like people staring at me all the time and I don't want people following me around," she said.
As for HSM3? The word is now that junior year is over with, the East High Wildcats are trying to relax, if they are able to get some decent summer jobs. Troy thinks he has landed a dream job at a country club, Lava Springs. But in reality, Sharpay is using it a way to lure him away from Gabriella.
Troy, the star jock, is played by Zac Efron, Vanessa plays the brainy Gabriella Montez, while Ashley Tisdale plays Sharpay Evans, the drama club queen.
Said Vanessa about HSM3, “It’s their senior year, so there’s going to be graduation - and prom!”
The video below is from High School Musical, Bop to the Top!
Ashley Tisdale plays the arrogant, domineering drama queen, Sharpay Evans, in High School Musical 3: Senior Year, which is still drawing the teens and tweens in droves to the movie theaters.
