Musical couple get round to a first kiss

4:17pm Thursday 23rd October 2008

High School Musical 3 has already smashed box office booking records in the UK. We talk to the film’s biggest stars, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, about how they keep their feet on the ground and filming their first kiss.

Unless you have been living in a cave for the last week, you won't have escaped the buzz around Disney's High School Musical 3.

What started out as a modest TV movie back in January 2006 has fast become a global phenomenon, with its first theatrical release smashing UK box office records for advance ticket sales weeks before it's even on the silver screen.

And then there was the London premiere, where thousands of young fans skipped school and queued for hours to get a glimpse of the show's fresh-faced stars Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale.

For anyone who doesn't have HSM-obsessed children, it's hard to understand the fuss about the squeaky clean musical extravaganza.

It's almost Grease-lite - no smoking, swearing or sex, but plenty of colour, catchy tunes, soppy lines and spine-tingling dance sequences.

Vanessa, who plays one half of the romantic leads Gabriella and Troy (Zac), sums it up neatly: “Kids can relate to us and our characters. They've been to school with Troy, the Gabriella and the Sharpay (Ashley) and they look up to us in a sense because it is a world where there is no sex or drugs or violence, it's just a movie that makes you feel good."

The chocolate box-pretty 19-year-old is sipping tea in an elegant London hotel suite the morning after the premiere.

“I got butterflies in my stomach, it was just the craziest feeling," she says of the red carpet madness.

“And it was definitely more nerve-wracking watching it with the fans. We were waiting for everyone to laugh, like 'come on, come on!”

“You go into a dream state,” 20-year-old teen heart throb Zac tells me later.

“Premieres are one of the few opportunities we have to meet our fans and I at least try to make eye contact with most of them.”

The original High School Musical follows the well-known Grease/Romeo And Juliet lovestory, as basketball jock Troy and beautiful maths geek Gabriella fall for each other against all odds and land the leads in the school musical.

The second instalment moved the action to a country club in the summer holidays where the devious Sharpay conspires to steal Troy from Gabriella, but all ends happily with a Troy and Gabriella duet and their first kiss.

Senior Year now sees them back at school, where they are torn between their love for each other and their friends, and the all-important college choice.

“I really love watching the characters grow,” Vanessa admits.

"In the first movie they meet, in the second they get a kiss and in the third movie, I feel like you really get to see them fall in love. It’s just this sweet, respectful, innocent love they have for each other and I love watching it.”

In another sprinkling of Disney magic, the two cast members have also fallen for each other and were recently pictured cosying up at a Parisian cafe.

Is it tough for Vanessa to kiss her real-life love on screen?

“It is,” she says with a shy smile.

“When I was about 11, I was in my acting class and my teacher said 'you're going to have to do this someday' and she gave me that scene from My Girl where they kiss and I don't think I’ve ever been more embarassed in my life, but I thank her now because I have to do it.

“It’s a really great part of the story, though, very sweet and romantic.”

But back to the more serious matter of those tough Senior Year choices...

“The pressure is building and you don’t know what you’re going to do with your future, where you’re going to go to college, or what you want to study and you don’t know what's going to happen with your relationships,” Zac explains.