MAD KIDS: Thanks for being here everyone! Well, almost everyone. Zac said he'll be here in a few minutes. Anyone know where he is?
LUCAS GRABEEL: Zac's probably in the make-up trailer getting his face on. That's not his real face in the movies. It's all prosthetics and masks.
KAYCEE STROH: I think he's probably eating a big ham and cheese sandwich. The other day he ordered the biggest sandwich I've ever seen in my entire life. "Where are you going to put that, buddy?"
MK: Since you guys know so much, what's Zac's favorite color?
LUCAS: Fushia.
VANESSA ANNE HUDGENS: Puce.
DREW SEELEY: And neon orange. Together.
MK: High School Musical made all of you instant intergalactic superstars! Have you been back to your real high school since?
ASHLEY TISDALE: I went to homecoming and was actually crowned the queen at homecoming. It was fun. I went back and saw my counselors and teachers and it was really cool.
MONIQUE COLEMAN: Unfortunately, I have been too busy working to go visit.
KAYCEE: I went back to visit my drama and singing teachers. They had me perform for the class. It was the strangest thing in the world 'cause it was the first time I actually felt like a celebrity.
CORBIN BLEU: I still hang out with some of my friends from high school. But I've been so crazy busy that I haven't had time to actually go to the school.
VANESSA: I didn't go to high school. I was home schooled after 8th grade.
MK: We know that the High School Musical 2 plot is top secret, but tell us everything that happens anyway, OK?
MONIQUE: Sorry! No can do. I think I was cut out of the movie. :)
CORBIN: Well if I told you everything, 1) it would spoil the surprises, and 2) Mickey would have me sleeping in the doghouse with Pluto. But I can tell you that the dances and music are even cooler than the first movie, and the characters go through a lot in their relationships.
KAYCEE: I cannot, but I can tell you that it takes place the last day of school. Conveniently, we all end up getting summer jobs together at a country club that Sharpay's family owns. It makes for an interesting plot because she's always up to no good.
LUCAS: OK, then I'll tell you. First off the camera pans down the hallway of the school and it moves gently down the lockers. Oh wait, that's the shooting script. Well, the plot is that everybody goes to this country club in the summer and they have to basically battle it out again with Sharpay and Ryan when Sharpay and Ryan are on their own turf.
MK: Did you appear in real high school musicals when you were a student?
MONIQUE: Yes, I was in Brigadoon and My Fair Lady. I was in the chorus.
CORBIN: I actually played the lead role of Ren in Footloose, and I played the very funny character of Sonny in Grease.
ASHLEY: I didn't -- not in high school. When I was little I used to do plays in a real theater, but I didn't do plays in high school because the drama teacher didn't like me.
DREW: I was Mr. High School Musical in school. I played the Minstrel in Once Upon a Mattress and Roger in Rent. Into the Woods was the most fun because I played both Jack and the Wolf with numbers right after each other so I was quick-changing in the wings like a fiend. It was good practice for what I'm doing now, because on these HSM concert tours the songs are back-to-back.
KAYCEE: I played Erma in Anything Goes which is the funnest role ever because I got to do it with a quirky voice. I also played Hermia in A Midsummer's Night Dream, and I played Kitty in Watermelon Boats, and Fritz in The Sound of Music 2: All or Nothing, and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Well, all those except one. Ha ha ha.
ZAC EFRON: Sorry I'm late! I didn't act in high school plays. I did a lot of local theater. My first role was as a newsboy in Gypsy.
LUCAS: My freshman year I choreographed the high school musical and was in it. And the next years I helped out with choreography for things like West Side Story, Kiss Me Kate, The Music Man and The Secret Garden. The majority of time I spent on stage was out of school in community theater, regional theater, rock operas, all that kind of stuff.
MK: Admit it -- most were pretty terrible, weren't they?
KAYCEE:Hahahahahaha. No they were not terrible! They were very good!
MK: If you danced and sang in the halls of a real high school like you do in HSM, you'd be sent to detention before you reached the first chorus, don't you think?
LUCAS: I actually did that. It's amazing that I actually made it into High School Musical because I was such a musical kid growing up. I always wanted life to be a musical so I choreographed numbers and got the basketball players together and the brainiacs together to we would do numbers down the hallway and in the lunchroom. It wasn't as beautiful as East High but it was fun nevertheless.
VANESSA: We actually always DO burst into song in real life! Random places. Me and my sister do it in the airport. Me and Zac do it at the mall. We kind of do it everywhere. Hahaha. I've never actually been in detention. The biggest trouble I ever got into was for chewing gum in dance class.
CORBIN: Luckily, I went to an arts high school where people not only dance and sang throughout the halls, but they would also play music and act out scenes in full costumes.
KAYCEE: It was quite normal for me too! I was known for it. I was always dancing or singing wherever I went. I'd just skip down the hall singing musicals all the time. I'm not shy about that at all. I'd sing Rent or Spice Girls songs. Who doesn't love the Spice Girls, right? My honorary Spice Girl name would be Spunky Spice.
ZAC: I did detention a few times when I was too noisy or loud in class. I was always that kid. I was talkative, and would say things that were funny but sometimes inappropriate.
CORBIN: I was never really in trouble. I was actually voted "Teachers Pet" in the yearbook.
MK: What were the rest of you voted in your high school yearbooks?
LUCAS: Nothing. I was the commissioner for the student council.
ASHLEY: I was voted "Most Likely to Be a Movie Star."
KAYCEE: I was Miss Congeniality and Triple Threat for being a singer, dancer and actress.
VANESSA: I didn't go to a regular high school, but if I say what I should have been voted for I'll sound totally conceited! "Most Likely to Succeed." I started acting really young so all my friends always said I was going to be a star.
MK: Drew, since you're Zac's singing stand-in for the first HSM movie and the concert tours, why don't you answer that for him?
DREW: Oh, OK. I think he'd say "Maybe I should have been voted 'Most Likely to Make Girls Faint Wherever He Went.'"
MK: Of the High School Musical cast, who would be voted "Biggest Trouble Maker"?
LUCAS: It wouldn't be me.
ASHLEY: Probably Zac because he does a lot of pranks. Last year he did a big prank on Corbin.
LUCAS: I've seen him try to execute several practical jokes, and only a few of them has he actually pulled off. They just kind of fall through. He has good ideas, maybe, but they just wither. Ashley's the biggest trouble maker of all of us. She's always being all girlie and causing problems. Girls.
VANESSA: For girls, me and Ashley are silly together. We're little girls, wild like that. And for the guys, it's Chris Warren and Zac. They're always playing tricks on each other, pulling pranks and getting in trouble together. On their own they're not that bad, but Chris really is trouble. Once Zac covered one of our dressing room trailers with "Caution" tape.
MK: What'd you guys think of the MAD Kids High School Musical issue featuring our Monkey Edition fakeout DVD label?
LUCAS: Monkey edition! That was funny. It's good to see that not everyone is just saying how fabulous it is, blah blah blah.
CORBIN: It was so funny. I love the fact that you guys made me the baboon.
VANESSA: It was hysterical!!! I thought the "Monkey Edition" DVD brought our true characters out. Hahahaha.
ZAC: Yeah, I loved it! I think the cover, and the boxers with red hearts, was hilarious. But I liked the inside about the Monkey Version of the movie even better, since it seems like we've made 20 million versions! It was funny and you made fun of us all and I love that.
MK: What was your most embarrassing stage experience ever?
MONIQUE: While on the High School Musical concert tour, during my big dance number, I fell on my butt.
CORBIN: One time I performed at this event that was honoring the famous composer Stephen Schwartz who composed the show Pippin. I was actually up on the same stage as him and Ben Vereen who starred in the original Pippin. I sang one the most popular songs from the show, "Corner Of The Sky," and I was so nervous that I completely blanked out on stage and pretty much rewrote the whole song right there in front of them!
DREW: This week I was making my solo album with a producer I?ve never worked with before. I went to shake his hand but I went SMACK into the sliding glass door inside the studio, just like a bird into a window. It was the cleanest glass I've ever seen. Or not seen, really! It busted my lip and made me fall to the floor.
KAYCEE: In high school I had an incident where I was trying to show off and be a really great dancer, and I ended up kicking my leg so high that it hit my head and knocked me out.
VANESSA: When we were shooting HSM2 there's a part where Zac spins me out like in "Breaking Free" except this song is called "Every Day." I was wearing a dress and it was windy so my dress flew up and everyone saw my underwear.
MK: Were they boxers with red hearts on them like Zac's?
VANESSA: No! Worse! They were a lot skimpier!
ZAC: For the record, under oath, I swear I do not own boxers like that.
MK: What were the best and worst lunch menu items at your school cafeteria?
ZAC: The best thing was the chimichanga, and the worst thing was probably the hamburgers.
MONIQUE: Best -- mashed potatoes. Worst -- meatloaf.
VANESSA: The French fries were soggy and mushy and disgusting. The best thing were these Popsicle thingies that were so good I had one every day.
CORBIN: Because my high school as located on a college campus, we had food such as Carl's Jr. and Panda Express in the cafeteria. All the food was awesome!
ASHLEY: The best was when they brought in food from Pizza Hut, and the worst was whatever kind of sandwiches they made. I never could figure out what was inside those.
KAYCEE: We had the nastiest, greasiest pizza ever. They could fill cars with that gunk.
LUCAS: Pasta Day was so disgusting. You could choose between a meat sauce, a tomato sauce and nacho cheese sauce, or you could get half-and-half and that would be even worse. But our cafeteria was famous for its cinnamon rolls and bread rolls. Kids would get, like, four rolls, and have bread and butter and soda for lunch. That's one of the reasons why Missouri is the 6th fattest state in the country.
MK: Congratulations!
LUCAS: Thank you! Thank you! We're hoping to make #5 in a couple years.
MK: So it was just like the catered lunches on the High School Musical sets, eh?
LUCAS: Well, that is leaps and bounds different. We had amazing food on High School Musical 2 set. On the last night we wrapped we had lobster and steak. Fresh lobsters too! We watched them take live ones and put them screaming in the cooker, right in front of our eyes.
MK: Did you know that if we stuffed Corbin with ham and cheese, he would be "Corbin Bleu Cordon Bleu"? Goes great with Monique Coleslaw and Corned Beef Hashley!
LUCAS: HAHAHAHAHA. That's really funny. That is the funniest thing I've ever heard.
CORBIN: HAHAHA! Oh man, I've been getting the Cordon Bleu thing my whole life, but putting it with them is too funny.
KAYCEE: Ho ho ho! That's awesome! Oh my gosh! What can we make up about me? When I was growing up they called me "Spacey KayCee" but that's not edible!
MK: Who's the most book-smart in the cast? And who's? um? not so much?
MONIQUE: We are all pretty bright cookies.
VANESSA: Zac. You don't think of him being smart, but he is. He's a really smart guy. And dumbest? I'm not going to put anyone down!
ASHLEY: Probably Lucas is smartest. He's smart about everything. At least he thinks he knows it all!
KAYCEE: It's a toss up between Lucas and Olesya Rulin who plays Kelsi, the piano girl, because she won all these awards in high school and she's fluent in Russian and she just went to Paris to study so now she knows French too. She's a genius.
LUCAS: I'd say Monique, or maybe Corbin. Monique is the only one of us who's graduated from college, and Corbin's been accepted to several really high-level colleges like Stanford. And I'm allergic to school -- I can't even be close to a textbook ?- so I'd have to say at the lower end there's me and, oh, um, well, Vanessa. She's youngest and is definitely the one who's had the least amount of schooling.
VANESSA: Hahaha. Thanks a lot! You'd better watch out now, Lucas.
MK: Now that you're rich and famous do you pay people to do your chores?
ZAC: No! That's a big misconception. I'm definitely not rich. Definitely not. And my least favorite chore? It's a toss up between dishes and the laundry.
ASHLEY: No, definitely not. Laundry's my least favorite chore though.
VANESSA: No! No, no, no. But the chore I hate most is vacuuming.
MK: Since you guys totally rule the world now, what new classes would you like to make high schools teach?
MONIQUE: Sign Language.
ASHLEY: How To Do Your Hair.
VANESSA: Dramatic Arts. And a Cooking class 'cause I suck at cooking so it should be mandatory.
KAYCEE: Hip hop, of course, Home Decorating, and Holiday Parties classes. When there are holidays I can't stop decorating. I am the freak of the neighborhood.
DREW: Ice Fishing and Downhill-Skiing-While-Listening to-Your-iPod.
LUCAS: And I would definitely add a musical class to teach people how to break into song on the streets every day. That way, if everyone took the class in high school, we could put together one number that the whole world can do at the same time.
MK: What was your least favorite school subject ever?
MONIQUE: Chemistry, Physics, and Math or pretty much anything that involves numbers.
ASHLEY: Math, because I'm not that good at it.
DREW: My worst subject is math. And my dad's a banker.
KAYCEE: Math! Math is the devil!
CORBIN: If I had to pick one I'd say history. It was always slightly dull for me.
LUCAS: There are so many!! I think even though Math is the universal language, it's definitely the worst subject ever. And Intergalactic Physics or whatever the stupid names are they come up with for accelerated math classes like Algebra 6 and Calculus.
MK: Drew, since Zac is back, how 'bout acting as Vanessa's stand-in for some of her questions?
DREW: OK. Vanessa's least favorite subjects would be nuclear physics and sublinear time algorithms.
VANESSA: What? It was definitely history.
MK: And what would she say are her fave things about Drew Seeley?
VANESSA: Hey, guys. I'm right here.
DREW: Vanessa would say that she loves my dreamy eyes, my devilish smile, my amazing voice, my incredible stage presence, and my magnetic personality. And, of course, my humble modesty.
MK: Is it true that the fine print on your Disney contracts commits you to make 101 High School Musical sequels including a "High School Musical On Ice" tour?
ASHLEY: No. Is that true? It's not true.
VANESSA: What???????
MONIQUE: Actually, it is 102.
KAYCEE: You know what? I wouldn't doubt it!
CORBIN: HA! I'd be filming High School Musicals even after I died. Ahhh!
LUCAS: I wasn't aware of that. That's kind of surprising, but hey, anything for Mickey.
MK: What's your favorite song to sing in the shower?
MONIQUE:"Rubber Ducky."
ASHLEY:"Oops, I Did it Again."
KAYCEE:"Take Me Out Tonight" from Rent.
LUCAS: "Let?s Get it On" by Marvin Gaye.
CORBIN: I usually tap dance in the shower.
DREW: I'm biased because I co-wrote "Get'cha Head in the Game" so that's my favorite HSM song. And it's the most fun to sing in concert because we get to throw basketballs to the audience. Vanessa's favorite would be, hmm, "Breaking Free" maybe.
VANESSA: Oh my God, no! It would so NOT be "Breaking Free"!!! Maybe "Glamorous" by Fergie. I sing a lot of things in the shower.
MK: And what's Zac?s fave HSM song to lip synch in the shower?
DREW: Oh, man! "When There Was Me And You"?
MK: What's the last song you downloaded from iTunes?
CORBIN: "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce.
KAYCEE: Shakira's "Hips Don?t Lie."
MONIQUE: The Broadway musical soundtrack "Wicked."
MK: Monique! You were on Season 3 of Dancing With The Stars. If you could choose any celebrity to be partnered with who would it be?
MONIQUE: Corbin! He's an amazing dancer and hardly ever steps on my feet.
MK: Corbin! How many barbers does it take to cut your hair?
CORBIN: 22!
MK: Vanessa Anne Hudgens! Are you any relation to Vanessa Annette Hudgens of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan?
DREW: As her interview stand-in I can honestly say yes. Yes she is.
VANESSA: Whaaaa?? Um, who??
MK: You know those geeky, over-the-top outfits and hats that Sharpay and Ryan wear? Do Ashley and Lucas wear clothes like that for real?
ASHLEY: I don?t find them geeky at all. Just over dramatic and '30s-ish. But I don't wear stuff like that at all.
MK: Ashley, you also star on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody with Dylan and Cole Sprouse. You can't tell them apart either, can you?
ASHLEY: Yes I can. Just knowing them is the secret. In the first week I could totally tell them apart.
MK: What kind of weird fan moments have you had?
ASHLEY: Once somebody asked me for some of my salad. The answer was "No."
VANESSA: A little girl came to my gym and pretended to lift weights so she could work out next to me.
DREW: It's all kinda weird for me, but in Tampa my mom came to see our concert so instead of leaving on busses with the rest of the cast, my mom drove me home. And, being a proud mom, she rolled down the window and yelled "Hey everybody! Look! It's my son Drew, the High School Musical concert star!" So many fans and moms ran out into the street and surrounded our van that, when the light turned green, we couldn't go without running people over. I felt like one of The Beatles.
KAYCEE: I had a little girl start to cry when she saw me, then she ran away. At least I think she was a fan! I think it freaked her out to see me in the flesh.
ZAC: I got kissed openly one time. I just got grabbed and kissed. I was completely unprepared, too.
MK: So, Zac, what are the pros and cons of being the dreamiest boy in the world?
ZAC: Haha. The pros are obvious, and the cons are few and far between. Sometimes when you want to be alone, it's really difficult.
MK: Drew, what are the pros and cons of being the stand-in for the dreamiest boy in the world?
DREW: Hahaha. The pros are that I get to travel all over the world and live my dreams and it's so much fun. And the cons are that whenever they make a High School Musical movie, I get to sleep in for two months. Wait, that's kind of a "pro" too.
MK: Do you have to dress like Zac offstage, too?
DREW: No! And no, I will not dress like Vanessa, so don't ask.
MK: Who would you like to be your stand-in?
DREW: Oh man, I hate going to the gym. I need a stand-in for that so I can skip that completely. I'd pick some muscle-bound dude or maybe Corbin because he was so good about working out everyday for Jump In.
MK: On the High School Musical concert tour busses, who got stuck with the bunk near the stinky bathroom?
LUCAS: Ha ha! On the guys' bus, Drew would be the closest one ? Corbin and I were farther way -- but there was a divider in between so it wasn't even really that close to Drew.
ASHLEY: No one did, because on the girls' bus the toilet never smelled! You?re not allowed to go #2 on the bus.
MK: Who snores the loudest? Who wears the silliest pajamas?
CORBIN: I don?t really know. I was usually asleep.
ASHLEY: No one snored on the girl bus, and I think all of our pajamas were really cute!
VANESSA: I think my sister and me have the silliest pajamas. We have footie pjs. My are camos, and my sister's has dinosaurs. They're from Target.
MONIQUE: Once I caught Ashley wrapped up in her Tinkerbell blanket and I imagine she was wearing matching jammies. I probably snore the loudest. (Allergies, geez!)
LUCAS: Drew snores, and I would say Corbin has the silliest pjs. They're polka-dotted, pink and lime green, with little basketballs on them because he's still holding onto that whole number from the first movie. He sleeps with a basketball for a pillow, too.
MK: Are you fibbing again, Lucas?
LUCAS: Maybe. Probably.Yes.
MK: What are some ridiculously trivial, insipidly silly facts about you that no sane fan needs to know?
ASHLEY: Everyone already knows everything because everyone asks me everything so there's nothing left! I don't eat cheese, cream cheese, butter or mayonnaise. I'm very bad in high heels ? I'm always falling over. I use Aquafresh toothpaste.
CORBIN: I'm eating Jalapeño Cheese Crackers right now.
MONIQUE: Once I decorated every wall in my bedroom in a different theme, and hung sheets from the ceiling.
VANESSA: I can inhale my nose and hold my upper lip up to my nose. But I can't whistle. Probably because I sprained my lip inhaling it with my nose.
KAYCEE: I like to squirt milk out my nose. I'll do anything for a good laugh. I love shoes. When you're not a size two you love shoes, purses and earrings. You know why, honey? They always fit! And I'll give you one about someone else. Lucas plays the guitar and he likes to change the lyrics around to be silly. I can't give an example because they're not appropriate! Hahahahaha.
LUCAS: I have built a house before, in the jungles of Guatemala. For real. My family and I would go on mission trips every year for eight years. We did all kinds of stuff, but building houses was pretty cool.
ZAC: It's funny, I keep having to come up with new trivia! I'm running out. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast! Well, I'm sure I had eggs. I always have eggs for breakfast.
MK: Chicken eggs or some other species?
ZAC: Yes! Chicken eggs! Ha ha ha. Not frog eggs. And I have a super weird mixture that I have to put on hash browns in the morning. You start with a big blob of ketchup, then you make the center of it concave, and you fill it with a big pile of black pepper, and on top of that you add a few drops of Tabasco sauce and you mix and mix and mix it all up. It's great. It's "Ketchup With a Kick." I invented it.
MK: We almost forgot to congratulate you, Zac, for your huge movie role in "Hairspray" co-starring with John Travolta as a 300-pound woman! Did Travolta have to gain any weight for the role?
ZAC: I don't think he gained weight. He still looks really great without his makeup on. The weight got added on with prosthetics and stuff like that.
