According to Lucas Grabeel, it took a while before he could say that he made it as an actor.
“I knew how lucky I was to have that string of very early success, but after Halloweentown [High], I had to go back to work at Blockbuster,” Grabeel, 40, said on the Wednesday, June 4, episode of the “Ned’s Declassified” podcast. “[It] was an awful job that I loved. That was a really amazing dose of humility.”
Grabeel grew up in Missouri, moving to Los Angeles when he turned 18 to pursue an acting career. Disney Channel’s Halloweentown High, which came out in 2004, marked his onscreen debut.
“This kid’s [in Blockbuster], like, ‘You look like the guy from Halloweentown,’” Grabeel recalled. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s me. Let this be a lesson, kid. Not every actor’s a millionaire and I’m struggling.’”
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After Halloweentown, Grabeel spent a span of two years auditioning and booking occasional guest spots on TV shows.
“It was really rough,” he recalled. “People said to me, ‘Look, you’ve done a lot of theater [and] you’ve got some experience. You’re probably going to go out and have some pretty easy early success. The real trick is to last through the valleys. … Save your money, don’t spend [it] and really learn how to hibernate and still stay motivated.”
According to Grabeel, the so-called valleys were particularly difficult.
Ashley Tisdale, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Lucas Grabeel and Monique Coleman attend the DVD launch gala for “High School Musical” in May 2006. Stephen Shugerman/Getty Images
“It was hard. I mean, I had $3 in my account,” he said. “I got rear-ended and my car was held together with bungee cords and duct tape.”
Grabeel’s luck changed when he landed an audition for Disney Channel’s High School Musical in 2006. While he initially read for leading man Troy Bolton (the role made famous by Zac Efron), Grabeel was asked to try out for Ryan’s part.
“I got a call and it was like, ‘Hey, man, get ready. You’re going to Salt Lake [City],’” Grabeel recalled of hearing he booked the role in the film shot in Utah. “I was, like, ‘Thank God, I don’t have to sell my car and, you know, walk everywhere.’ Then, I went in and quit Blockbuster.”
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Grabeel’s Ryan, the twin brother of Ashley Tisdale’s Sharpay, appeared in all three HSM movies. He also made cameos in spinoffs Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
Grabeel has continued acting in the years since leaving HSM’s East High. He later starred in Switched at Birth on ABC Family (now Freeform) from 2011 to 2017, playing Toby Kennish.