In 2021, BuzzFeed pointed out that Vanessa Hudgens has quite the collection in her filmography, classifying the performances as, “gloriously chaotic, fantastically entertaining, and sometimes downright strange.” The list included such works as “Bandslam” (a rock band competition flick co-starring Aly Michalka), Christian drama “Gimme Shelter,” Lady Gaga’s official film debut “Machete Kills,” and “Beastly” (where Mary-Kate Olsen plays a witch). Of course, there’s also “Spring Breakers” with Selena Gomez, which was quite the break from Disney, indeed. Though there was talk of Hudgens auditioning for “Twilight: New Moon” in the late 2000s, Ashley Tisdale told MTV News that was probably just a rumor. Hudgens stuck with mainly indie projects immediately after the “High School Musical” trilogy.
These avante-garde selections shouldn’t be surprising for our versatile Vanessa. Even when she was promoting her debut record, “V,” Hudgens cutely claimed in a 2006 behind-the-scenes interview, “My album ‘V’ stands for Vanessa, of course, but it also stands for ‘variety’ because, in a sense, you know, it’s a mixtape. And it has pop-rock, and pop and R&B, and dance-electronic music, so it’s kind of a mixture of everything put together.” Who could forget “Come Back to Me,” Hudgens’gold-earning sampleof Player’s “Baby Come Back” — or “Say Ok,” which got a steamy, beachy music video featuring Zac Efron? “Identified,” her 2008 sophomore album, got mixed reviews, but that certainly didn’t slow her down.