- High School Musical director Kenny Ortega, 75, told PEOPLE that he had a “premonition” about the film’s cast while shooting the movie’s big final number, “We’re All in This Together”
- “I took the cast, and I put them in a circle and I said, ‘Get ready. I think your lives are going to change, ’ ” Ortega recalled
- Ortega also shared one of his favorite songs from the franchise
High School Musical director Kenny Ortega revealed that he had a premonition while filming the movie’s final musical number — and it ultimately came true in a big way.
Ortega exclusively spoke to PEOPLE while attending opening night of Stranger Things: The First Shadow on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre on Tuesday, April 22. During the conversation, the famed director, choreographer and producer recalled one of his most vivid memories from the High School Musical set.
“There are a lot of them [memories], so many of them,” Ortega, 75, said. “But we were filming High School Musical 1, and we were filming the finale, ‘We’re All in This Together.’ And we had all these cameras going, and the cast and the dancers, and I looked into the gymnasium and I said, ‘Man, if Disney does the job we’re doing here, this is going to reach a lot of people,’ “ he says.
“And I took the cast, and I put them in a circle and I said, ‘Get ready. I think your lives are going to change.’ And they remember that moment as I do,” he continues. “[I] just had this premonition, this feeling that we were up to something that was going to matter.”
And Ortega wasn’t wrong. High School Musical became one of the most successful Disney Channel Original movies of all time and launched the careers of stars like Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale. It also generated two popular sequel films, the third of which was released in theaters in 2008 and earned over 250 million dollars worldwide at the box office, per Variety.
Additionally, High School Musical 3: Senior Year marked the biggest opening weekend for a musical film up until that point (though it was eventually eclipsed by Les Misérables in 2012).
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Ortega also revealed one of his all-time favorite songs from the franchise.
“Oh, well, so I like ‘Get your Head in the Game,’ ” he says. “There’s so many fabulous [songs]. I couldn’t even begin. We had three albums and all of them just eclipsed anything that had ever happened for a television soundtrack.”
“And the writers that we had working with us on were of the great composer lyricists, working in film, and television and theater. So yeah, an endless list of favorites,” he says.
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