Give Zac Efron a Retroactive Oscar

How many times have you watched Zac Efron’s performance of his song “Bet On It” in High School Musical 2? For myself, I’d say, conservatively, that it’s upwards of 50. Since I first witnessed it on the small screen in 2007, “Bet On It” has always stood out as singularly raw and authentic — and now, I finally know why.

According to Efron, the “Bet On It” scene is not a product of Kenny Ortega’s signature choreography. Apparently, the fierce passion and magnetic watchability can be attributed to Efron himself. In an interview clip promoting Efron and Joey King’s new film, A Family Affair, he revealed that his “Bet On It” dance was fully improvised. Those forceful air punches? That powerful-yet-scary glint in his eye? The natural flair and pizazz with which he filled that vast, vividly green golf course? All Efron, baby. I think if we’d known that at the time, the Academy would’ve had no choice but to acknowledge a straight-to-TV movie with a lead-actor win.

“I thought I invented that dance move, by the way,” he said in response to King performing her own little rendition of the song. “You know, when we shot that, we just had no ideas for what to do on the day. The director, he just was like, ‘Dude, we have no concept for this song, what do you wanna do?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, we’re on a golf course.’ That was all improv, and we shot it, I think the whole song, in three hours.”

Yeah, that’s right. It was Zac Efron who came up with the idea to gently inspect his outstretched forearms as if to say, Whose are these? It was he who chose to fall dramatically to his knees, singing up to the sky to emphasize his character’s desperation, and to let the sand gently slip through his fingers just as Gabriella slipped through Troy’s. Let us take a moment to reminisce:

In a 2017 interview for the ten-year anniversary of the film, Ortega spoke to E! News about the direction he gave for the song’s crescendo. “Think of yourself as on top of the whole world. You know what I’m saying? Don’t think of it as a contrivance or as a limitation, but think of it as This is the top of the whole world,” he said he told Efron. “It was an absolutely spectacular day.” That it was, Kenny.