From an exclusive interview with Variety on Tuesday (June 30), the ‘High School Musical’ Director revealed that one of its main characters, Ryan Evans (portrayed by Lucal Grabeel), is gay. The big revelation from the phenomenon trilogy director himself was just in time for Pride Month conclusion, HollywoodLife reported.

Aside from Ryan Evans, Kelly Ortega also opened up about his perspective of the iconic characters in the movie and even tackled about how High School Musical adapted the Pride agenda without telling it to the viewers.

“…we decided he’d probably going to come out in college,” Ortega said. He also went into the impossibility of Ryan coming out as gay in the movie; considering it is Disney produced. According to the director himself, he believes that Disney is one of the most progressive team he has ever worked with but he was just baffled about the fact that Disney is not that fully-ready in venturing out to that sensitive topic, especially that most of the viewers are family and kids.

Well, Ortega still managed to input the said character to Lucas Grabeel’s representation of the role. “They (the viewers) would see it … feel it … know it … identify with it,” Ortega told Variety. Well, that’s what happened!

Kenny Ortega is an openly gay man who never fails to use his identity in creating crafts, and one of it is High School Musical. Ortega is also behind the amusing films such as the Descendants film series, Hocus Pocus, and Newsies. “I put a lot of who I am into my work,” Ortega shared.

In an interview with BuzzFeed in 2016, Lucas Grabeel – who is straight -- shared that he knew Ryan is gay when he first read the script. However, Kelly’s main objective is to just quietly let the viewers identify the character themselves.

For starters, Ryan Evans plays as Sharpay Evan’s (Ashley Tisdale) fraternal twin, the main antagonist of the story. Ryan’s fashionable character made him one of the most iconic characters in the film, and as well as in Disney. His vocals never failed to catch the viewers’ attention, and I’m talking about his duets with his twin sister Sharpay. Among of the chart-topping songs from the film were “What I’ve Been Looking For’ and “Bop To The Top”.

The first installment of the movie series was released on January 2006, which became Disney’s channel’s most commercially successful original movie ever produced, the same record was also hit by the film’s second movie released the year after.

The hit-movies was a modern play of Romeo and Juliet, per DailyMail U.K. The plot starts with a famous basketball player who fell for love to a simple gal. Their love story began when the duo was casted in a school musical.

Among the cast ensemble is Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Monique Coleman, and Corbin Bleu.