Reneé Rapp almost had her “Breaking Free” moment on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, and the revelation has Us shook.
The Mean Girls actress, 23, recently told The Hollywood Reporter that she auditioned for the Disney+ show, along with multiple singing competition shows, before nabbing her role on Sex Lives With College Girls.
“I started auditioning for America’s Got Talent and American Idol whenever they’d come anywhere close to Charlotte and Huntersville, [North Carolina],” Rapp recalled in the interview published on Wednesday, February 28. “I auditioned for, what’s the f–king [name]? High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.”
The series, which was responsible for launching Olivia Rodrigo’s career, debuted on the streaming service in 2019 and also starred Joshua Bassett, Sofia Wylie, Julia Lester and more. Its fourth and final season premiered in August 2023.
While the Disney+ series and the singing competitions “didn’t go anywhere,” Rapp found her footing after booking Mean Girls the Musical on Broadway in 2019 and HBO Max’s Sex Lives in 2021.
Rapp admitted to THR that the constant rejection “in hindsight is slay.”
“I think that it made me so resilient. And so I’m spunky and scrappy. I am like, ‘I will make some s—t work,'” she added, before explaining that she put herself in the “most absurd situations” in order to do so.
“When I was 14, I would find somebody through Instagram who knew somebody who was 35,” she began. “Why were they talking to a 14-year-old kid? We don’t know. I mean, we know, but we don’t know. But I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to sing a Solange song at this underground fashion show that I don’t think I’m legally allowed to be at.’ There was just always s—t like that.”
It’s also the reason why she moved from North Carolina to New York at only 19 years old. Upon arriving, she turned down a touring gig with the Mean Girls musical, hoping for a record deal instead. The universe had other plans for her, though, as two weeks later, she got a call to play Regina George on Broadway.
“I had parents who were financially capable of giving me a certain life, so I felt comfortable to turn down money,” she told the outlet of her decision. “Let’s be clear: That’s an insane, insane privilege. On the other hand, I’m stubborn as hell and I really know what I want to do and I really know what I don’t want to do. Ultimately, I’m going to do what I want to do in order to get to the next place in my career.”
Following her Broadway debut, Rapp starred as Leighton on Sex Lives for two seasons, announcing her exit from the series in July 2023. Rapp released her debut album, Snow Angel, one month later and reprised her role as Regina George in the new Mean Girls movie.
