By George Loomis
Who says a “High School Musical” actress can’t go from playing a squeaky clean teenybopper to an HIV-positive stripper named Mimi behind on her rent? When Vanessa Hudgens sat down with MTV News to confirm her next collaboration with “Beastly” costar Neil Patrick Harris, she spilled on the pair’s newfound friendship and their plans to reinvent “Rent” for the Hollywood Bowl in August.
“I’m so excited,” the 21-year-old said of her involvement in the NPH-directed rendition of the rock opera favorite. “I haven’t done theater in years upon years, and that is my house.”
Before NPH took the director’s chair himself, he starred in L.A.’s “Rent” production in 1997. So naturally when he was casting his own version of Jonathan Larson’s tale about young artists struggling to survive the AIDS crisis — a musical launched in 1994 and set in New York’s East Village in the ‘80s — Vanessa was only a text message away.
“He texted me, saying, ‘Do you like “Rent”?’” she recalls of NPH’s casting process. “And I was thinking he was going to ask me to see it with him, so I’m like, ‘Yeah, I love “Rent”!’”
But Vanessa isn’t the only one beaming over the news. None other than fellow Disney star Ashley Tisdale offered Vanessa her approval.
“It’s really fun because me and my girlfriend Ashley Tisdale used to always sing ‘Out Tonight,’ and now I actually get to do it onstage!” the “HSM” star recalled with delight. “Ashley was so excited. We were so obsessed with all the songs, and we would just sing them in the car over and over again. So she’s really happy for me.”
Fans of “Rent” have “Beastly” to thank for this new unlikely endeavor. Can you imagine a world in which Vanessa and NPH never formed an alliance and never agreed to get all musical on us? Vanessa said they hit it off with each other on the Montreal set of the film, an adaptation of Alex Flinn’s “Beauty and the Beast”-based novel. “Beastly” comes out in theaters July 30, days before Vanessa’s “Rent” debut.
Thus far in her second venture with the former “Doogie Howser, M.D.” star, Vanessa has had a “work session” with the director to prepare for her return to the stage.
“I came in and I sang a few songs for him, and we worked through it; it was so much fun, because within the songs are such loaded stories — it’s a musical, and you get to say whatever you want within those songs.”
According to Vanessa, “Rent” is off to a thrilling start. Describing the sensibility she has in mind for Mimi, Vanessa explained, “I’ve been adding different emotions to certain lines that other people haven’t done before; that’s what we’re playing with. It’s so fun, it’s like a scene within the song.”
And if you think Vanessa has any cold feet about the project, think again.
“That’s how I grew up, being onstage,” the young theater veteran of shows like “Carousel,” “The Music Man” and “The King and I” (among other local musical productions) said. “Now, I finally get to go back, and I’m so excited.”
Are you as excited as Vanessa is about her new spin on Mimi? What do you think NPH will bring to “Rent” as director and is it enough to drag you to the Hollywood Bowl in August?
** Hollywood Crush Twitter