One of the cool things about the Sundance Film Festival is that you could be walking down the street and someone like David Denman (Roy from The Office) might just walk right by you on the sidewalk. This actually happened but since my encounter with Denman (who incidentally, is really ridiculously good looking) was extremely uneventful since he literally just walked right by, I’ll tell you about another chance meeting I had with a TV actor who I actually had the chance to talk to for a bit.
CB Photographer Leanne and I were on one of the shuttle buses when actor Bart Johnson climbed aboard with some friends. Anyone who has seen either of the High School Musical movies will remember Johnson from his role as Jack Bolton, the coach of the Wildcat’s basketball team and father to Zac Efron’s character, Troy. Johnson is an extremely friendly guy who was somewhat tight-lipped regarding the plot of the upcoming theatrical installment of the series, High School Musical 3.
What Johnson did say was that the third film is going to be “fricken awesome” and that, “Everybody’s excited to get back together, I think. We’re supposed to start shooting March 20th. This is of course, providing the strike ends before then. Johnson said the strike is “making everybody a little nervous.”
Johnson seems pretty eager to get started working with the cast on the third film and had some very nice things to say about Zac Efron and HSM director Kenny Ortega, “Zac’s a really good buddy of mine. I get to do all of my scenes with him so I’m really happy they got him back on [the film]. Kenny Ortega’s a really good friend too so I’m very excited. He’s amazing.”
Since my area of expertise, at least with regards to this site is television, I realize what a huge deal HSM is. The second film, which premiered on the Disney Channel last year was off the charts in terms of the ratings on premiere night. When the third film premiers in theaters this fall, it’s likely that tweens all over the country will be lined up around the block to see it. Though Johnson wasn’t able to offer me any details on the record regarding his part in the third film, I think we can all expect more of the supportive coach/dad scenes that we’ve seen from him in the first two movies.
