Bart Johnson spotted Zendaya and Tom Holland during a trip to the U.K. — and he almost bonded with her over their connection to Zac Efron.
“I was gonna tell @Zendaya that she dated my son, kinda. How am I seeing more movie stars in the UK then I do on the Universal studio lot?” Johnson, 52, who played Efron’s onscreen dad in High School Musical, tweeted on Tuesday, July 11, alongside a video of Zendaya, 26, holding onto Holland, 27, as they walked through the streets of London. (Efron, 35, and Zendaya dated onscreen in 2017’s The Greatest Showman.)
Johnson clarified why he didn’t approach the couple, adding, “That’s me drinking my cold Chocolate and minding my own business in this video. I didn’t take the video. They just randomly walked in front of me. Tbh this happens in LA all the time… just didn’t expect it here.”
The actor has remained a household name after playing Coach Bolton in the High School Musical franchise from 2006 to 2008. The Disney hit focused on basketball star Troy Bolton (Efron) and newcomer Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) as they navigated high school romance, drama and musical theater.
After Efron rose to stardom as Troy, he branched out with film roles including Neighbors, Dirty Grandpa and Baywatch. He returned to his musical roots with a part in The Greatest Showman, which also starred Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams and Zendaya.
Efron later discussed the hard work that he and Zendaya put into the project.
“Zendaya, what a partner. We came up with the dance [for Rewrite The Stars] the day after being told that we’d have like maybe a week to shoot it that we had one day,” he told BBC. “And so, we shot our hearts out for one day and sent the footage in and they gave us an extra week to shoot it because it was good enough.”
Efron continued: “But it was hard. It’s hard to make a musical these days. It’s a shame. If you want to make — and I love Deadpool so don’t get me wrong. But you can make Deadpool [movies] all day and with lots of money for that CGI hand to fly off the man’s body when the sword comes. But we had to actually really do trapeze. We did ropework for hours.”
Although Efron has transitioned into movie roles, his onscreen father Johnson has continued to support a High School Musical return. Johnson will be making an appearance in season 4 of the Disney+ spinoff series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which will start streaming on August 9.
Before the show started filming its final season, Efron hinted at a possible cameo when he visited High School Musical’s East High. “Don’t you… Forget about me ✊🏼,” he captioned a July 2022 Instagram photo of him posing in front of the school in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Johnson, for his part, replied to the post, writing, “Warms coaches ole heart to see this. Welcome home, son. WHAT TEAM!? 🏀🐾.”
