A MOUSE CLUBHOUSE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
RYNE SANBORN
talks about dancing in "High School Musical" and the auditions

by Scott Wolf

In 2005, Ryne Sanborn was just a high school student who liked hockey and acting and happened to be in a few shows and TV movies. The next year, everything changed for Ryne when he suddenly found himself in the Disney Channel's smash hit, "High School Musical."

Talking to Ryne, you feel like you're talking to a typical down-to-Earth guy, fresh out of high school, except for one difference. He's got some incredible stories to tell.
 
Scott Wolf: How did you get to do "High School Musical"?

Ryne Sanborn: After the Olympics (Ryne had a part in the opening/closing ceremonies) I went back to school and started doing hockey again. Nothing really happened for about a year or two after the Olympics. I had been doing auditions for movies and stuff and I did a couple little things, independents.

I got a call from my agent saying, "We have this Disney Channel original that we want you to go for." So I went and did the first audition and reading what I read of the script it seemed like just another of those Disney Channel originals that you see all the time.

SW: Yeah, I know what you mean. None of the films were really that popular. They were good, but before "High School Musical" I don’t think anything was that popular.

RS: Exactly.

SW: You were reading, though. I always picture the dance auditions. You were going to be an actor, you weren’t going for dancing.

RS: I had no idea that it was dancing and singing and all that other stuff in the first audition.

SW: Can you tell me more about the audition?

RS: In the first audition I actually read for Chad and they were like, "No, that’s not quite what we’re looking for. Let’s see you read for Zeke." So I read a little bit of Zeke and they said, "We want to see some Jason, too." So I read some of the Jason lines and they were like, "Alright, cool, we’ll give you a call."

The second one, I came back and read Jason again and they actually asked, "Would you sing a couple lines for us?" I said, "Uh… sure…" I was kind of nervous about it because I had done choir my whole life but I’ve never sung solo in front of five people where I wasn’t prepared or anything so I was kind of freaking out. I can’t even remember what I sang now. I think I was so nervous I forgot right after I went out. I did that audition and they said, "Okay, we’ll give you a call."

So I came back for a third one, and in the third one Kenny (Ortega) and Don Schain and a couple of the Producers and stuff like that were there. I did Jason again and I sang a little bit for them again. It was just like a regular audition and a couple weeks later they called me and said, "We want you to be Jason."

SW: Were you excited?

RS: I was stoked. I hadn’t done anything for awhile and it seemed like a fun movie. I never could have imagined throughout the entire filming of the movie that it was going to be what it was. It really just seemed like another great Disney movie. Like Zac and Vanessa and Ashley and all of them, they were popular but they weren’t that popular, we were all kind of unknowns so it was really cool to see where it went.

SW: Was there a moment where you realized, this is huge?

RS: Yeah, it was about a week after it first aired on TV and I heard the numbers come in (the ratings) and I thought, "What? That’s ridiculous. I can’t believe that." Then we started getting calls for doing promotional things and it grew from there. All of a sudden I started seeing "High School Musical" stuff everywhere I went, at every store. It was crazy, it was a phenomenon.

SW: And it still is, isn’t it?

RS: Yeah, it has not died down at all, in fact it’s gotten bigger if anything.

SW: And you had never done any dancing before you were in it?

RS: Never.

SW: Did you have to dance at the audition?

RS: I was supposed to go to a group audition and I was out of town at a hockey tournament, and I actually got hurt at the hockey tournament. I couldn’t make it back for it, so a couple weeks after that I went and met Bonnie (Story, choreographer), and she just taught me a little bit of the dance and then they filmed me doing that little bit, and playing some basketball and they sent it in and that was it. It was kind of weird, I really didn’t have a dance audition for it.

SW: Do you think your hockey helped with your dancing?

RS: Absolutely. I think if I had been any other kind of athlete other than a hockey player it would have been a lot harder for me. Hockey is a lot about balance and a lot about controlling your hands separate from your feet, that’s huge in dancing so it definitely helped me.

SW: What was it like doing the films, what was the atmosphere and everything?

RS: The first one was awesome because we mixed it up a lot with basketball. So we’d do some dance rehearsal and then we’d play some basketball so the first one was really awesome like that. The second one, the dancing got a lot more intense because we had the whole partner thing and all that stuff. We had a couple of weeks of rehearsal before it. I did really well with the dancing, I kept up with everybody but there was just a few times when I would be like I can’t get this part so I would go over and ask Chucky (Klapow) or Bonnie if they would help me for just five minutes to clean up a couple single parts in it, or KayCee… any time I felt like I didn’t quite have something there was always somebody I could go to and they would always help me, so it was definitely a great atmosphere. Everyone helped everybody.

SW: What do you think one of your most challenging moments was?

RS: I’d have to say when we were learning the baseball dance number…

SW: Which funny enough is called, "I Don’t Dance" right?

RS: Yeah. The dancing was a lot more advanced choreography, the whole swing dancing stuff that we put into it and the jumps that we did. I didn’t have any preparation for that. Most of the other kids did some kind of dancing so they knew how to handle some of that stuff. I just had to start from scratch. Chucky was always there. Every single number that was kind of like the guys number, Chucky was always by my side.

SW: You mentioned that it was swing dancing in that number. I was wondering if that was intentionally a play on words where they say, "Hey batter, batter… swing!" and then do swing dancing. Do you know if it was intentional?

RS: I didn’t think it at first, but the more we did rehearsals it seemed like that made sense. Like, "Hey, batter, batter" swing dance. It made sense to me.

SW: I just wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not. You know, on the "High School Musical 2" DVD, you hear Kenny (Ortega) saying things like, "I want this to be like Esther Williams" or like "Frankie and Annette." Were you familiar with those old films?

RS: No. In every one of those situations a lot of people were like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah…" (like, "I get it") and I was like, "Yeah… I don’t know what you guys are talking about but I’ll do my best. (We both chuckle)

SW: What was Kenny like to work with?

RS: Awesome! As many people as we had on that film he always found a way to be one on one with everybody. I had a lot of situations where I was uncomfortable with what I knew and how well I knew the choreography or the scene or any situation and he was always right there, like one on one, to talk me thru it like, "Your feelings should be…" this, this, or this in this situation. Or, "Jason’s character would react like this." He was just so one on one and that’s my favorite thing. Not a lot Directors get that involved in their talents and all and I love that.

SW: On the DVD you see him getting involved in the dance rehearsals, but he was like that throughout the film, not just during the dancing?

RS: His personality and the way he works with his actors is so different from the other stuff I worked on. Like the other Directors, they get really involved in a scene, but not so much the individual people in it.

There were a couple scenes where me and Chris (Warren) didn’t even say anything in the scene. It was just reactions and he gets so involved in that. He goes around to everybody and gets so involved in the little things that I think that’s what made the film great.

SW: Do you have any favorite memories from working on the films?

RS: Yes, from the first one, I think my favorite thing was from the first one, the first time we all had rehearsal for "Get Your Head in the Game" because it was during basketball practice and we kind of made that up as we went. It wasn’t choreographed and everyone threw some input into it. So the whole thing built up from the ground with everybody. That was my favorite thing because it wasn’t choreographed by the choreographers right before. We kind of all built it so it was all our own choreography.

Then the same thing with the second one when we were doing "I Don’t Dance," a lot of those baseball cuts you see in between like diving over that guy or me making that throw to first base, that was all built up from the ground. We never choreographed anything like that. It was all like, "Maybe we can turn and make a double play," and they were like, "Cool… let’s try to work something out." I love the choreography sessions where we, the cast members, created it with everybody else.

SW: Did that happen a lot?

RS: Yeah, same thing with "Work This Out," the kitchen number, Kenny came in and we were all in the room and they put on some music and we literally just messed around for a little bit and slowly but surely it built in to choreography. It was like a workshop session which is what Kenny called it and that’s how that dance number was born.

Check back for more from RYNE SANBORN in the future.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in the interviews are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mouse Clubhouse. Mouse Clubhouse accepts no legal liability or responsibility for any claims made or opinions expressed within.