From High School Musical: The Musical: The Series to movie star! Joshua Bassett is bringing his singing skills to a new Disney+ movie called Better Nate Than Ever.

Starring Rueby Wood as title the character Nate Foster, the movie is based on a book of the same name by Tim Federle — who created HSMTMTS. Joshua, for one, will be playing Nate’s brother Anthony Foster.

“Joshua Bassett has been this good luck charm for me since he was cast as the very first series regular in HSMTMTS, and it was a joy when he signed on to this very different role of Nate’s jock older brother,” Tim told Entertainment Weekly in February 2022. “It was really full-circle. I knew that Josh had this dream of living in New York City in an apartment with no air conditioning and just writing songs all day, and I was like, if you come do this movie, you’re going to get paid to live in New York City for a summer. And he was like, ‘I’m in!'”

The director added, “When he first started on High School Musical, he was hired at 17 and it was his big break,” noting that now, Joshua is acting as a mentor for costars Rueby and Aria Brooks (Libby). “And it was so cool to see Rueby and Aria, who watched the series and were fans of Josh, look up to Josh now,” Tim also told EW.

Featuring original songs, the movie is all about believing in yourself.

“In Better Nate Than Ever, 13-year-old Nate Foster has big Broadway dreams,” the film’s official logline reads. “There’s only one problem — he can’t even land a part in the school play. But when his parents leave town, Nate and his best friend Libby sneak off to the Big Apple for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove everyone wrong. A chance encounter with Nate’s long-lost Aunt Heidi turns his journey upside-down, and together they must learn that life’s greatest adventures are only as big as your dreams.”

Joining the cast as Nate and Anthony’s Aunt Heidi is Friends actress Lisa Kudrow. When describing the character of Nate to EW, Tim called him the “classic middle school protagonist who dreams of this big wide somewhere out there.”

He added: “And whether your dream is baseball or politics or being a chess player or whatever, a lot of us were that kid from a small town. This is for underdogs out there, anyone who feels like they’re the costar of someone else’s story, because we’re all the stars of our own life. And while the odds are crazy in show business and in New York and frankly just in staying sane as a normal human, somebody beats the odds every day, and I hope the audience who watches this remembers that could be them too.”

Scroll through our gallery for everything you need to know about Better Nate Than Ever so far. 

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