Zac Efron reveals High School Musical’s most iconic dance was improvised

High School Musical star Zac Efron has revealed one of the franchise’s most iconic moments and dance numbers was completely unscripted.

The Disney Channel seemed to hit gold in the late 2000s when High School Musical first premiered. The franchise helped launch the careers of celebrities such as Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, and Zac Efron.

Though there are a ton of re-watchable moments from all three movies, one of the most iconic moments occurred in High School Musical 2 and centered around Troy Bolton (Efron) singing on a golf course.

Efron’s performance of ‘Bet On It’ has been memed for years thanks to its campy vibes, and it seems like the unforgettable moment was created on the fly.

“When we shot that we just had no ideas for what to do on the day,” Efron told co-star Joey King during an interview with Still Watching Netflix.

“The director [Kenny Ortega] was like, ‘Dude, we have no concept for this song. What do you wanna do?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. We’re on a golf course.’ So we improved it. We shot the whole song in about three hours.”

He also told King that he had long thought he had invented the body roll move featured in the sequence.

‘Bet On It’ is one of the most memorable parts of the High School Musical franchise because it was the first time Efron got to perform a solo musical number.

Though he was the star of the first High School Musical movie, Efron didn’t sing; his vocals were performed by singer Drew Seely.

While chatting with E! News, Seely revealed that Disney never explained why they used his voice instead of Efron’s for the final cut. He chalked the decision up to the company underestimating how popular the movie would be.

“In all honesty, I think they were entirely caught off guard with how big it became,” Seely said. “They probably expected it to be successful, but not like the juggernaut that it was.

“So maybe at that point, they’re like, ‘We got an actor and a singer—what do we do? What do we say?’ I think the story for a while was that our voices were blended. Let’s call it what it was: I sang in the first film, Zac sang in the second and third films.”

High School Musical 2 allowed Efron to show off his singing chops and ‘Bet On It’ really put him on people’s radar as one fan remarked, “Bro gave us a banger by mistake but I’ll still take it.”

For more, keep up to date with all the movies to watch this month, and check out our list of the best movies of 2024 so far.