And ahead of this final season, the fate of the fictional Ryan Evans was revealed in a teaser ahead of the premiere.
In the scene released July 25, during which the actors are filming as their characters, Lucas’ Ryan can be seen kissing his partner (played by Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying) and thanking him for coming to watch as he performs alongside his former classmates. “This means so much to me that you’re here,” Ryan says while the two are backstage. “Gimme that mic.”
For High School Musical trilogy director Kenny Ortega, the scene confirms a detail he’d always wanted to include. While he’d always intended for the character to be gay, he wasn’t sure audiences were ready when the original movie premiered in 2006.
“I was concerned because it was family and kids, that Disney might not be ready to cross that line and move into that territory yet,” he explained to Variety in 2020. “So, I just took it upon myself to make choices that I felt that those who were watching would grab. They would see it, they would feel it, they would know it, and they would identify with it. And that is what happened.”
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