Tom Holland compares Zendaya to Vanessa Hudgens' Gabriella in High School Musical and even shouts out Zac Efron
A chill Zendaya quiz went off-script when Tom Holland invoked Vanessa Hudgens, sparking a full-blown High School Musical nostalgia wave.
Tom Holland and Zendaya went on promo duty for Spider- Man: Brand New Day and, as usual, managed to turn a basic press stop into a mini rom-com. This time it was a quick BBC Radio 1 quiz that spun into a High School Musical tangent, a Greatest Showman technicality, and one throwback story that made Holland do a very theatrical gasp.
The quiz that launched a Gabriella comparison
During a trivia round with host Ali Plumb, Holland and Jacob Batalon were asked how many songs Zendaya performs in The Greatest Showman. They both guessed three, which is the standard, credited answer. Plumb even ticked them off: 'Rewrite the Stars,' 'The Greatest Show,' and 'Come Alive.'
Zendaya, however, upped the number to four. Why? Because she counts the moment she yelled encouragement to Zac Efron during filming as part of the musical tally. Cheeky? Yes. Also very on-brand.
'You shouted out to Zac? Why did I immediately go to Gabriella standing up in High School Musical?'
Zendaya did not deny it: 'I mean, not dissimilar, but in an angry way.' And just like that, Holland officially likened her to Vanessa Hudgens' Gabriella. The clip made the rounds online on July 9, 2026, because of course it did.
What the quiz said vs what Zendaya counts
- Credited in The Greatest Showman (the quiz answer): 'Rewrite the Stars,' 'The Greatest Show,' 'Come Alive'
- Zendaya's personal count: those three, plus the on-set shout to Zac Efron she jokingly treats as a fourth
Their long-running bit: support, callbacks, and a little chaos
One reason this landed: Holland and Batalon clearly pay attention to Zendaya's career outside the Marvel bubble. They even showed up for her The Greatest Showman premiere back in 2017, well before Holland and Zendaya went public as a couple.
And the nostalgia kept going. At a Spider-Man: Brand New Day fan event in Berlin, Zendaya brought up her first date ever: seeing Andrew Garfield's The Amazing Spider-Man when she was about sixteen. Holland's faux outrage was immediate. He hit her with a very dramatic 'How dare you,' and she laughed it off: 'I know... sorry... but it all worked out.' That clip circulated on June 23, 2026, and honestly, it plays like a deleted scene from their press tour.
For context, Zendaya originally told that first-date story while accepting the Star of the Year Award at CinemaCon, framing it as a weird little omen of where her life was headed. A few years later she was MJ in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and now she is back for Brand New Day. So yes, it did work out.
Why this hit the timeline so hard
It is the perfect blend of trivial and telling: a throwaway quiz question that turns into a mini character study of their dynamic. Zendaya quietly reframes the trivia, Holland instantly turns it into a Disney Channel-era reference, and the two of them riff like they are still killing time between set-ups. It is silly, a little nerdy, and very them.