Joshua Bassett Admits He's Been Turning Down Projects And Agents Hate It
Joshua Bassett has come a long way in recent years. Since landing his breakout role as Ricky Bowen in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, the California native has been enjoying quite the career run as he continues to enjoy success in both career and music (his reported breakup with co-star Olivia Rodrigo has even earned him some comparisons with Taylor Swift).
Since he shot to fame, Bassett has also been getting a lot of other project offers. That said, he’s not keen to take on everything. Instead, Bassett seems to be going with what feels right, which may not exactly be what agents expected from the star.
Joshua Bassett Became A Disney Star After Playing A HSM Extra
When he was much younger, Bassett landed a role in the hit High School Musical, but it was only for JV Jock #2. One decade later, he heard about his current show and knew he had to take his shot.
“High School Musical was the first show I was ever in. When the audition came around, it just made sense,” the actor recalled. “It’s a dream.”
Instead of the Disney Channel, Bassett found himself doing a High School Musical project for the then-new Disney+, which gave him a bit more anxiety.
“It’s scary and exciting and everything in between. Obviously Disney has been around since all of us can remember and I didn’t have any doubts on the Disney side, but when you’re starting a new network, this new service, it can be a little intimidating, especially when you are adding on to this franchise that is this beloved,” he explained.
“The amount of people that told me: ‘Don’t screw it up’, I’m like: ‘Alright’. There is some pressure that comes with it.”
Fortunately for Bassett, he also had some previous acting experiences to pull from.
“I took things from Grey’s Anatomy that I learned about being subtle and not necessarily having to overdo everything, then with Dirty John, you learn something every time and I think each thing has led me to where I am now,” he explained.
These Days, Joshua Bassett Has Been Turning Down Projects: ‘Agents Hate It’
Rising stars are typically open to all sorts of projects in the hopes of increasing their exposure. But Bassett isn’t a typical rising star, to begin with, and he’s happy to turn some offers down even if people representing him are not.
“If I’m offered a movie for something that shoots for seven months, but I don’t really believe in or stand behind the message of that film, I’m not going to waste my time doing that because I could be spending seven months making music that I feel passionate about,” he said while also admitting that his “agents hate it.”
Also, to this day, Bassett also has no idea how much he’s earning from his hit Disney+ show. “I still don’t know how much money I’m making for High School Musical. That’s a true story,” he said. “I’ll tell my business managers ‘I don’t want to know. If I need to worry, let me know.’”
Bassett also revealed that the knows what it’s like to have nothing. “I’ve lived in my car with negative $1 in my bank account, so I’ve seen both sides of the coin and I choose not to let it dictate how I live my life,” he explained.
Joshua Bassett Is Never Motivated By Money
Despite his fame, Bassett likes to keep things simple. For starters, the actor/singer has kept his Civic around. “I like how a Civic is low key. It’s super easy to drive,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you get a ding on it, nobody cares.”
At the same time, Bassett is proud to own only a single pair of shoes even today.
“I have Converse that are black and white. And they’re the only pair of shoes that I have, period,” he revealed. “I get overwhelmed with choice and I’m very much a minimalist. I like to keep it simple.”
It seems that Bassett has always known what truly matters, even a couple of years back when High School Musical: The Musical: The Series just started airing. Back then, he made it clear that his life “hasn’t really changed” despite his breakout role.
“If anything, this show, filming it has changed me as a person and I’ve grown so much and all that, but I’ve still got a good circle in my life and I’ve still got my family, and as long as I’ve got those key things, whatever shifts around me doesn’t quite affect me because I have that core,” Bassett continued.
“But I keep my core and nothing else really matters too much.”
At the end of the day, there are a lot of things more important than money for Bassett. And also, he maintains that money has “no effect on happiness.”
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