Lucas Grabeel originally walked into his High School Musical audition for the part of Troy Bolton nearly two decades back. However, he ended up playing Ryan Evans, another character who has remained iconic over the many years since. He opened up about this in a new interview.
Lucas Grabeel landed Ryan’s part despite auditioning for Troy in High School Musical
Lucas Grabeel opened up on his original High School Musical audition, revealing that he originally auditioned to play Troy Bolton. The role ultimately went to Zac Effron, cementing his status in popular culture.
In a new interview with Buzzfeed, Lucas Grabeel spoke about this original audition. “I went into the audition, and I sang ‘Lean On Me.’ I originally auditioned for Troy, so I also read one of the scenes between Troy and Gabriella,” he revealed, “I got a callback, and I sang for [director] Kenny Ortega. He was like, ‘Oh, you’re great, but you’re no Troy, you’re a Ryan! Can you learn the new sides for Ryan and come back in?'”
He explained the process, “I got another callback a few weeks later, and this was a seven-hour-long Broadway-style audition. There were around 50 of us in a room going for Ryan, Sharpay, Troy, and Gabriella. We learned dances, we sang duets, we did scenes together — there was a lot of mix and matching.”
The actor continued, “It was down to me and two other guys at the end for Ryan, and I didn’t hear anything for maybe a month or so. I was thinking, ‘Okay, it’s over. You didn’t get it.’ Randomly, I got a call one night. They said, ‘You got the part. We’ll send over the script, and you’re gonna be recording the album next week.’ It was wild!”
Following his stint on the High School Musical films, Grabeel’s career took off, and he continued on with other projects like Switched at Birth and Sheriff Callie’s Wild West. His most recent appearance came in My Adventures with Superman.
Originally reported by Sourav Chakraborty on ComingSoon.
