- Hi, I'm Jason Earles.
- I'm Joshua Bassett.
- And I'm Matt Cornett.
- And this is Wired Autocomplete Interview.
[upbeat music]
- You ready?
- I'm ready?
Let's go.
[upbeat music]
"What are Joshua Bassett fans called?"
Oh my gosh, this is controversial.
- What do they called themselves?
- That's what I don't know.
I truly don't know, it changes all the time.
Next.
"What is Joshua Bassett famous for?"
Hell if I know.
I would probably say "High School Musical",
and I'd like to think the music.
- I think you're famous for your curly hair.
- Aw, shucks.
"What is Joshua Bassett vocal range?"
Dude, it changes all the time.
I mean, when puberty hit, it was devastating,
I used to be,
oh wait, I should find this.
When I was 10.
I put together this thing of me singing
literally as high as I possibly could
and because for whatever reason,
I wanted to do this collaboration
of all these different songs,
but really I used to think when I was little
and this is what happens when you're in musical theater,
as a guy, is the higher you can sing,
the better you are, which is not the case.
But I just used to make as high as I possibly could
because I thought that was what would make me impressive.
I got it.
♪ Ain't no river wide enough ♪
♪ To keep me ♪
- Need some new ear drums.
- "What instruments does Joshua Basset play?"
Piano, drums, ukulele, bass, guitar,
little bit of saxophone.
I can only play "Fly Me to the Moon".
- So in short, all of them.
- Almost, just about.
"What does Joshua Bassett improvise?"
No, in the end of season one,
after we did a handful of takes,
Tim Federle, the showrunner, pulled me aside
and he's like, "Okay, we have it.
When you get to this line, say whatever the hell you want,
and then whenever you're done, get back on script."
And I was mortified.
I was like, what am I gonna say?
I have no idea what to say.
I ended up going on this whole rant
and I'm pretty sure they kept all-
- I think they used most of it.
Yeah, it's crazy,
and what's crazy is I still see people
reciting the entire monologue word for word
in front of the East High School and whatnot.
- Well, that was great.
[Joshua laughs]
- Thanks.
Top to bottom, baby, you ready?
"Matt Cornett fan fiction." [Matt laughs]
- [Crew Member] Have you ever read any of 'em?
- I don't think I actually have,
mainly 'cause I'm scared to,
but no I've seen Instagram.
- Wattpad or whatever.
- Yeah, and little edits
that people make of you and I,
it's cute.
- [Joshua] "Matt Cornett workout routine."
- Workout routine.
When we're filming, Josh and I like to go
to the gym together and try to out workout each other.
It's kind of good
because then I see him making progress
and I'm like, oh, I need to do some things
that really add some heavy, heavy weight
so that I can look better than Josh, of course.
- It's with love though, it's with love.
- It's with plenty of love.
- [Joshua] "Matt Cornett dog."
- Aw.
- Speaking of, we we're just talking about Kota.
- We were, I do have a dog.
She's actually probably here with us now, in my jacket.
Her fur goes everywhere I go.
Her name is Kota.
K o t a
and she's a Siberian Husky.
She's the sweetest, cutest thing on planet earth
and I love her so much and she's like my little baby
and you can find her on my Instagram somewhere.
- [Crew Member] Do you have a quick photo?
- I do.
- Don't take as much time as I did, please.
- I promise this'll be worth it, guys.
- Totally worth it. - I'm almost there.
- Thank you.
- Oh my gosh.
- Isn't this adorable, look.
- [Joshua] "Matt Cornett lookalike."
- I feel like a lot of people say Harry Styles
which I don't see,
but you've told me Harry Styles before.
- In the eyes, I can see a little bit.
- Depending on how moppy your hair is.
- Let's be clear, Harry Styles looks like you.
"Matt Cornett flip flops."
I would love to know why people are looking up
"Matt Cornett flip flops".
Why?
- I own a one pair of flip flops
that only get worn when I go to the beach.
Not really a flip flop guy.
[Matt laughs]
Okay, oh.
- Ready? - Yeah, let's do it.
"What happened to Jason Earles?"
[Matt and Joshua laugh]
- I don't even think Jason knows what happened.
I don't know, I'm telling you,
the last 20 years have been a blur.
I grew up and then I went to college
and then I ended up in LA
and then a bunch of shit happened.
I was on "Hannah Montana" and that was weird.
I did "Kickin' It"
and I kind of hung out and played video games
for a couple of years
and then I started doing "High School Musical".
You know what, endlessly good things.
I have wonderful wife.
I have lots of great friends.
I work on very cool shows.
Good stuff happened to this guy.
- "Are John Cena and Jason Earles the same age?"
The answer to this question is no.
John Cena is actually three days older than I am.
- What? - Whoa.
- What'll really blow your mind
is if you go back and watch "Hannah Montana",
there's an episode that John Cena's in.
Where I don't wanna read for school or whatever,
so he pops into my imagination,
he's like "Reading is good," and all that.
He literally picks me up,
spins me over his head, throws me over a couch.
- I don't remember that.
- It's the best episode ever,
and if you look at John Cena and me side by side,
you go, "They're not even the same species."
"How old was Jason Earles in 'American Pie'?"
I did "American Pie Band Camp"
right before we did the pilot for "Hannah Montana".
- [Joshua] Oh, wow.
- I probably would've been in my mid twenties,
and you think I look young the first year of "Hannah",
I look even younger in "American Pie."
I probably look like I'm 15, maybe, in that movie.
"Was Jason Earles in 'Glee'?"
I was not in "Glee".
- Who do they think is you?
- Lea Michele?
[Matt and Joshua laugh]
- That makes the most sense.
- Jeremy Renner, that one I get.
- Oh, Jeremy Renner, I confuse them all the time.
- I was at a Toys"R"Us and a kid came up and was like,
"Oh my God, are you?"
I thought they were talking about "Hannah Montana".
And I was like, yeah,
and they're like, "Oh my God, Hawkeye, I loved you in,"
and he thought I was Jeremy Renner.
I was like, thank you, it was such a fun movie to do
and I signed his-
- [Matt] No, you did not.
- I a hundred percent did.
I was not gonna ruin that kid's experience
with Jeremy Renner, so Jeremy, you're welcome.
- There you go.
- I almost murdered someone with that.
- [Joshua] "HSMTMTS recap."
- Basically, you're following the theater kids at East High,
and we live in a world where that East High
is where they filmed the "High School Musical" movies,
so then we kind of freak out
that our school is famous from being in movies.
- And then the second season, what show do we do?
"Beauty and the Beast"? - "Beauty and the Beast".
- And then season three is at summer camp
and we're doing "Frozen".
- Which is hilarious.
- "HSMTM...SM versus HSM."
What I think what's cool about our show
is that it's completely different.
It really is self-aware,
we are not trying to be any sort of sequel
or anything, it's its own universe.
I can only hope that there's something in each of them
that people can walk away with,
but I think they're incomparable really.
They're just completely different.
I also really appreciate how,
because we're in a television show and we have more time,
we can go more into different storylines
that show the humanity in a lot of characters
and we can deal with a handful of different issues,
anything from anxiety to sexuality,
to everything in between.
It doesn't have to fit in 90 minutes.
We can expand on these characters
and I think it's cool to talk about
more real and current issues
doing "High School Musical" in 2022.
"Who wrote HSMTMTS songs?"
Lots of people wrote HSMTMTS songs.
Olivia Rodrigo and I have written
a handful of songs for the show,
Dara Reneé wrote a song, that might be a secret.
We have a handful of other songwriters,
it's actually cool,
each song is written, pretty much, by a different person
and you get a good variety from that.
But I was fortunate enough to write another song
for season three called "Finally Free"
and it's out now with the first episode of this season,
so very excited about that.
- "Who are the characters in HSMTMTS?"
There's a lot, there's a lot of great ones.
- Way too many.
- Hit us with the regulars, go.
- Ricky, Nini, Gina, E.J., Carlos, Seb.
- Kourtney. - Kourtney.
- Ashlyn. - Ashlyn, Big Red.
We got Miss Jenn, we got-
- Mr. Mazzara.
- Lily, we have Antoine.
Howie.
- Lot of good ones.
We could go on.
- This season though,
we have a lot of new characters.
We have Jojo Siwa, who's joining the cast,
Corbin Bleu, like we said, is joining the cast,
Meg Donnelly is joining the cast,
Adrian Lyles, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Saylor Bell.
We have a lot of awesome new characters.
Really, I think the world
is just gonna fall in love with each and every one of them.
"Who choreographer HSMTMTS?"
Zach Woodlee, who choreographed "Glee", is the choreographer
and he is the funniest guy.
- He is funny.
- Oh my gosh, he is just a hoot
and so wonderful to work with.
He's brilliant.
He really has the vision and it's so wonderful to be able
to trust someone like him to just help us with everything.
- I will say, going into the show,
I had no dance experience, literally zero,
to the point to where we had to do what they called
a move and groove session,
just so they can see if we could actually move our bodies.
Somehow, by the grace of God, Zach Woodlee
was able to to make us, well,
I'll speak for myself. - Presentable.
- I'll speak for myself.
Presentable.
- "Is HSMTMTS based on a true story?"
- All of it's real.
- I will say though,
talking to Tim Federle, who created it,
I'm pretty sure each character is inspired by a real person.
- Also, this show has this really uncanny ability
to put something in the show that was written months before,
that parallels something that is exactly
happening in someone's life when we shoot it.
- Totally.
- It's a very, very bizarre,
almost supernatural thing that happens a lot.
- Three, two, one. - Just don't hit yourself
in the face.
- Wee! - Ooh.
- It me in the head.
[Matt laughs]
Oh my, "Why does Joshua Bassett?"
Oh, that's scary.
Oh, my gosh.
"Why does Joshua Bassett have a teddy bear?"
It's actually a funny story.
I was at this fair thing,
I don't even know what's, Arizona, maybe?
Me and my friends were being followed
by a swarm of tween girls
and we were like, we need to hide,
so we ran into Build-A-Bear to hide.
When we were in there,
we were like, wait, this is really awesome,
so we each got our own and I named it Franklin.
Actually Franklin is in season two
of "High School Musical" in my bedroom.
If you go back, you can see he's in the background.
"Does Joshua Bassett play sports?"
Why don't you tell 'em, Matt?
- Joshua Bassett does not play sports.
- Not even a little.
Sports aren't my thing,
but I play instruments.
"Does Joshua Bassett have tattoos?"
- Ooh, great question. - That's a no,
I think my mom would kill me.
I really wanna get the second star to the right
on my thumb here,
just 'cause I love Peter Pan
and I was Peter Pan when I was 12 in a musical.
I just love the youthful reminder
to keep the youthful spirit alive in me.
"Does Joshua Bassett like Billy Joel?"
Do I?
My dad played Billy Joel all the time growing up.
One of the first songs I ever learned on the piano
was "Piano Man" by Billy Joel.
- How many times do you think
you've played "Piano Man" on set?
- Way too many times.
Many times.
Way too many. - Many, many times.
Remember that one day when the D.P. yelled at me,
they were like,
"How long is it gonna take to get this shot set up?"
And he's like.
- "A hell of a lot faster
if you'd stop playing that [beep] piano."
- "How old was Joshua Bassett- - Uh-oh.
- In Grey's anatomy?"
I was 17.
It was right after I booked "High School Musical",
so I remember going into that audition
and being like, I'm about to go shoot this show,
so whatever happens, happens
and I feel like, because I felt less pressure,
the audition went that much better,
but yeah, I think I was 17.
- Oh.
"What.
- Episode? - Episode
is Matt Cornett in 'Bella and the Bulldogs'?"
A few episodes.
I couldn't tell you the episode numbers,
but I know mostly season two.
There's actually one really fun episode
where we're in the wild, wild west.
That was the first time I got to wear a cowboy hat
and overalls and everything for a show and-
- On a show.
- On a show, let's make that clear.
I grew up in Arkansas.
- You've definitely worn cowboy hat and overalls.
- That was my everyday,
actually there are so many baby pictures of me in overalls
and it's terrifying.
"Where did Matt Cornett go to high school?"
Technically, I didn't go anywhere for high school.
I did public school in Arkansas through eighth grade
and then started online school in high school
and it was horrible and I hated it
because I didn't get the high school experience.
Although I did get that through my brother and sister
and there was a part of me that was like,
I just want the high school experience,
but I feel like I've had it now.
- Yeah. - "High School Musical".
- I think you're doing all right.
- "Does Matt Cornett sing?"
Yeah. - Yes.
- Yes, I sing.
I don't, however, know my vocal range, but I do sing.
"Does Matt Cornett have siblings?"
I have an older brother and older sister,
so I'm the baby.
My brother and I are best, best friends.
I go to him for a lot of advice.
He's still gonna be that older brother figure
even when he's 60
and I'm however old I am, when he's 60.
- Is it okay if I break this? - Yeah.
- [Matt] Oh.
- All right.
Also, my hair stuff, anyway.
It's paper cut for the ages.
- "Does Jason Earles actually know karate?"
I know television karate.
If I wanna hurt myself, I can do karate.
The thing I'm better at actually, is Brazilian jujitsu.
I did that while we were doing "Kickin' It"
and I'm a big fan of that.
It's a little bit easier on the body
than getting punched and kicked in karate.
"Are Jason Earles and Miley Cyrus related?"
I will say that even though
I'm not genetically related to the Cyruses,
Billy Ray, like, almost immediately adopted me
as an official Cyrus and was calling me Jason Ray Cyrus.
They had a spare room made up for me in their house
so if I didn't wanna drive back and forth,
I would crash at their place.
They were exceptionally wonderful and gracious,
so I do consider Miley to be like family
and really like a little sister,
but we do not share any genetics at all.
"Is Jason Earles Hawkeye?"
See?
- Oh, my God.
- Yes, yes he is. - Absolutely.
- I am Hawkeye.
"Why doesn't Jason Earle's age?"
- [Joshua] He does, don't worry.
- I do, no, I look a lot older than I used to,
but I feel like being in that environment
where you're being creative
and you're being young and youthful and silly,
it actually does sort of manifest itself in how you age
and how the energy that you put out there,
so I think I don't age
partially because I just refuse to grow up.
"Jason Earles birth chart."
I'm a taurus
and if there ever was a taurus, I'm a taurus.
I'm super loyal, ride or die 'til the end.
But if you me over, I carry serious grudges.
I am very much a taurus.
[all laughing]
- Thank you so much for tuning in
and that concludes our Wired Autocomplete Interview.
- Aw, yay.