At the beginning of 2006, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens were cute teenagers no one would stop on the street. But after “High School Musical” debuted to a then-record 7.7 million viewers on the Disney Channel in January of that year, the young actors were instant A-list tabloid sensations.
The plot was a formula as old as Shakespeare — brainy new girl wins the heart of the dreamy basketball star when they star together in the school’s musical. Lighthearted and fun, the movie was “Grease” for a new generation, and kids (and kids-at-heart) ate it up. The franchise spawned two sequels, the last of which was released in theaters and still holds the record for biggest opening weekend box-office for a musical, earning more than $80 million worldwide.
For a rabid pop-culture audience, the “High School Musical” phenomenon was made all the more irresistible because the onscreen Romeo and Juliet, Efron and Hudgens — a k a “Zanessa” — were lovebirds offscreen as well. And their careers were on the upswing.
In April 2009, six months after the last film’s release, Efron was hosting “Saturday Night Live.” He’d diversified his career, starring in charming comedies (“Hairspray”) and interesting dramas (“Me and Orson Welles”) alike. Hudgens had graced the covers of countless fashion magazines and won favorable reviews for the music comedy “Bandslam.”
After making their name as high-school students, they were poised for a bright future. But, as with so many twentysomethings trying to figure it all out, things didn’t go quite as planned.
In 2010, the pair broke up and took on critically reviled movies like “Charlie St. Cloud” (him) and “Sucker Punch” (her). Scandals arose left and right — nude photo leaks (her), drug rehab (him). They could’ve become punchlines, has-beens.
Instead, they’re back on track.
Efron and Hudgens are both returning with intriguing projects. Hudgens, 25, stars in the gritty drama “Gimme Shelter,” in theaters now, for which she transformed herself by chopping off her hair and gaining 15 pounds to play a 16-year-old pregnant runaway. “This one was definitely the big jump of faith,” she tells The Post. “I was a little nervous, but somewhere deep inside me, I had such reassurance it would be okay and that I could do it.”
Efron, 26, produced and stars in “That Awkward Moment,” out this Friday, which flips the rom-com genre on its head, following three guys (including Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller) as they navigate friendships and relationships.
While Efron’s attempts to go darker and more grown-up have gone largely unnoticed — not much was made of last year’s “At Any Price” or “Parkland,” and the Lee Daniels-directed “The Paperboy” ended up sounding much better on paper — “That Awkward Moment” finds the actor looking the most comfortable he has in years.
“[‘That Awkward Moment’] is the perspective of three young guys, getting through life,” Efron tells The Post (in an interview separate from Hudgens). “It was the first movie that I really felt I had earned through my life experience — that perspective required to make this movie authentic and unique and stand out and mean something.”
He’s certainly had a lot of “experiences” lately.
In September last year, TMZ reported that Efron had entered rehab twice in the spring, after his cocaine and MDMA use spun out of control on the set of his film “Neighbors.” The National Enquirer ran a photo of him passed out in a hotel, alleging heroin overdose.
In November, Efron broke his jaw, saying he had slipped in a puddle of water at his house. Gossip columns claimed he had actually fallen on a glass coffee table after partying. When “Today” asked him about rehab last week, he dodged the question: “I’m in the best place I’ve ever been . . . Things are good.”
It appears he’s cleaned up, having taken time to reflect.
“In the old [Hollywood] days, fame was kind of cool because clearly it was earned,” Efron says. “Starting with a lucky break, my dream from that point on was to sort of not be just successful, but to be a man of value. I finally feel like I’m where I want to be.”
Hudgens echoes his sentiment. She had drug rumors thrown her way when, in a photo at Coachella last summer, she was seen licking white powder off her fingers. In an interview with Marie Claire magazine, she said it was not cocaine or Ecstasy, but actually white chocolate.
That wasn’t even close to being her most salacious scandal. In 2007, nude photos of her leaked online. In 2009, more topless photos appeared, and yet again in 2011.
“Honestly, it’s something that I try to put in the back of my mind and forget about because it was really traumatic for me,” she says.
Having put the past behind her, Hudgens has reinvented herself as a risk taker. She sexed it up in last year’s “Spring Breakers,” and her latest movie required checking her ego at the door.
Based on a true story, “Gimme Shelter” sees her taking on the life of a pregnant 16-year-old runaway.
“I loved the idea of a complete transformation,” Hudgens says. “That’s something that you really search for — something that can really take away things that could be a crutch.”
After Hudgens and Efron broke up in 2010 — in an interview with People, she chalked it up to their work schedules — she was reportedly dating her “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” co-star Josh Hutcherson before ending up with “Carrie Diaries” actor Austin Butler, whom she is still with. Over the years, Efron has been linked with everyone from Rumer Willis to her mom Demi Moore. He’s now believed to be single.
Maybe their scandals are why things are finally heading in the direction the two stars want. Up next, Efron will continue his comedy riff in May with “Neighbors,” opposite Seth Rogen. Later this year, Hudgens will star in her first comedy, “Kitchen Sink,” which she calls a cross between “Shaun of the Dead” and “The Breakfast Club.”
“The more people that you tell your goals to, the less powerful they become,” she says.
Just don’t count on a “High School Musical” reunion anytime soon. Hudgens says there’s only one way that would happen: “A time-traveling machine!”