Vanessa Hudgens Reflects on ‘High School Musical’ Audition & Meeting Zac Efron: ‘The Time Just Keeps Flying’

If you feel like High School Musical came out an impossibly long time ago, just imagine how Vanessa Hudgens feels. During her recent appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, the 33-year-old actress opened up about how quickly the years — 16, if you’ve been keeping count — have gone since she first auditioned for Disney’s hit musical film series and met all her castmates.

Sitting next to host Kelly Clarkson, who shared that her young children have now fallen in love with the movies more than a decade after they premiered, Hudgens revealed that she still distinctly remembers the lengthy audition process that went into finding the perfect cast of young actors to play East High’s singing, dancing, basketball-playing Wildcats. “I remember meeting Zac for the first time, meeting Lucas for the first time,” she said, talking of course about Zac Efron, her HSM character Gabriella’s love interest, and Lucas Grabeel, who played Ryan Evans.

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“Me and Ashley had already met cause we did a commercial together a month prior,” she continued about Ashley Tisdale, who starred as the always fabulous drama queen Sharpay Evans in the films. “It’s wild. The time just keeps flying.”

When Clarkson asked the Tick, Tick…Boom! actress if kids today still recognize her from the films, Hudgens replied, “I feel like I kind of look the same still — good genes, good genes!” before opening up about why she thinks the franchise has held up over the years.

“It’s so crazy because it continues to live on for generations,” she said. “That’s like the magic of musicals though. Musicals just have this legacy about them — they don’t go out of style.”

She also conversed with Clarkson about her recent ghost hunting adventures, revealing she’s had paranormal encounters since she was a kid, as well as her current mindset in regards to possibly releasing more music in the future. “I had to sit back for a second and figure out what it is that I wanted to do,” shared Hudgens, who released two albums — V and Identified — in the 2000s.

“I felt like if I was going to do it again, I wanted it to be really authentically myself and really be my own voice and perspective and writing,” she continued. “I just honestly haven’t gotten there, it hasn’t been like the main priority. I feel like if I was to do anything, a jazz something would probably be the first to come because I love jazz.”

Watch Vanessa Hudgens talk about meeting her High School Musical castmates, future music plans, and paranormal experiences below:

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