Welcome back to She Pivots. I'm Vanessa Hudgens.
Welcome to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk with women who dared to pivot out of one career and into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Some news. I'm so excited to announce that She Pivots is now part of the iHeart Family. This isn't going to mean much for you as the listeners. Same producers, same host, same team, just bigger family. We're kicking off our first
iHeart episode with none other than Vanessa Hudgens. When the email came through that she wanted to be on the show, my producers and I could not have been more excited. Now we all know Vanessa Hudgens as an actress, performer, and singer, but she's pivoted into a new venture, or several new ventures in fact, as a business owner. I had the chance to interview Vanessa to talk about each of these and then talk about her mindset going into
this new phase of life. It was so fun to hear that she, like so many founders, attends trade shows and works the room to get people to stock her product. She is hustling just like the rest of us. Her interview is truly delightful. It was fascinating to hear about how she views the different phases and changes in her career, especially considering that it started when she was just ten
years old. So stay tuned as we hear about everything from her relationships to performing on Broadway to going into business with friends. Enjoy.
My name is Vanessa Hudgens, and I I am an actress, a producer, singer, entrepreneur, business owner.
Okay, we're going to back up a little bit, So what did you want to be when you thought about, like, who am I going to be when I grow up?
Like when you were little.
When I was little, I was either going to be a pediatrician or an actor. Okay, those were my two things that I gravitated towards. I started musical theater when I was like six years old, so that happened a lot faster.
Than the pediatrician root would have taken me.
And then as I've gotten older, I realized that I would have not done well because I can't do blood.
So you were performing locally in shows and really doing exceptionally well, to the point that your family moved you pretty young to La to start working professionally.
I was very, very shy, and my parents saw that, like I loved singing and dancing, so they put me in like a community theater show where you literally have to pay to play. It was like fifty bucks to be in the play. And I like a tiny little and I remember being terrified in the beginning. I would like make myself as small as possible because I was like, I.
Don't want anyone to look at me.
But through acting, I like felt that behind hiding behind a character allowed me to open up so much more. And then I had a friend who was like, I can't go on this audition for a commercial.
Would you want to go? And I said.
Sure, my parents drove me and I ended up booking it. So then I ended up signing with her agent. And it was just kind of like one thing led to another, and my parents are like, oh, well, it's like she's actually working and you know, she's making an income. And I feel like we moved the first time for me to do this when I was probably eleven or twelve, just to be closer Telle, because we were driving up a lot from San Diego.
That's a big decision to move your whole family. Did you feel pressuring like they were moving it for your career you were so young.
No, because I had no concepts, you know, like I don't know, like I enjoyed and loved doing what I was doing, and they were like, let's move, and I'm.
Like, Okay, that's great, I get to keep doing it.
As a kid, you have no idea, you just know what you love doing, and like that was it. I feel like it took a long time for me to even process the fact that that was my career because it was just something that I was so passionate about. I started homeschooling when I was probably fourteen years old, So.
No, But at the same time, it was just something that I loved. Like I didn't look.
At it as a tour or a task or anything negative.
It was literally just like, Oh, I get to show up and play and have fun and this is really cool.
It probably was after high school musical that I was like, oh, this is actually my career, like this is my job.
Yeah, well talk me through that.
When you went into high school musical, did you have a sense about how big it would end up being no, of.
Course, not again. Just a kid happened a good time.
We're back.
Us High School Musical two only on Good Morning America this morning.
Plus we're going to meet the cast of High School Musical two and get to see them perform live. That's all next on gm AN. I'm not ashamed to admit looking forward, I had a crush, I had a new best friend.
I was like working on a movie with a director who directed one of my favorite movies, Abra Jocus Focus.
Like I was just like, this is the dream I'm living, literally the dream.
Like that was just it Like it still would have been a very fond experience that I look back on.
It's crazy. Yeah.
The first one we did when I was fifteen, the last one we did when I was eighteen. So yeah, like that whole three years, it was really just that cast just the right or Die, us against the world, and the whole world was looking and it was wild, but like we had each other to lean on so it felt safe.
Yeah, And did you really lean on one another in that way?
Oh yeah, for sure. Like I mean, Zach was my boyfriend, Ashley was my best friend. We all lived within like a ten minute ratious of each other. So we were all very close and we kind of kept to ourselves always.
Zach is endurable and we all just have so much fun. I me and this sad each other for like a year. Now we work together, Like she is so great. I love her. She's like now my sister. We all just hang out. We just had a glass were as London family in the content.
Obviously, a high school musical was quite a departure from like the big film you had been before that in thirteen, like very different, literally.
The opposite ends of the spectrum.
So did you think, Okay, I should lean into this genre or I'm trying to prove something by be in a different kind of genre, because you kind of bounced around a little bit with choices after that.
That was where I always had envisioned my career going. I always wanted to be the indie girl. I wanted to do the really artistic films that are mind bending and make you really question life.
That was always the goal.
High school musical came around, and I was like, well, you know, I might as well give it a go. I love musicals still do really, and so like that was just another aspect of myself that I knew I could lean into, so that happened. But after that was all said and done, I was like, Okay, I need to pull away from this image because I don't want to be stuck in a box. Like this is something that I want to be doing for the rest of my life, and if I allow myself to stay on the same.
Train, it's cowens like that'll be it.
I always think that like the most interesting actors, other people who are like real invent themselves and you're like, whoa, that was wild.
But that was them.
I remember, like Charlie's a monster, and I was like, oh my god, that's the dream. So then when I got a script, gave me shelter and I talked to the director and he was like, I want to cut off all your hair and like be really cool if you gained all this way, and I.
Was like, yes, just yes, yes, yes, yes, yes that sounds like my cup of sea.
But yeah, I had to like definitely distance myself from the sweet, good girl next door character in order to, I think, allow myself and my audience to grow with me.
Though Disney fame can be alluring, Vanessa knew that she wanted to pull away. But how Vanessa shared that at first she led with her own interests and instincts. Honestly, it was just literally instinctual.
It was like, Ooh, I don't want to be trapped here, so I'm going to run the other direction, and like, wow, there may be a lot of opportunity in this lane.
That's not what I want because I already did that.
And I think that is just so important to constantly, like be growing in all aspects of life, especially in your career. And I wasn't going to be growing much if I kept on doing the same thing over and over again.
Yeah, and then you.
Went into Broadway, Yes, which is a different kind of muscle. Like you're a talented theater actor, but it's eight shows a week.
Yeah, that's an it's a grind. I mean, I love theater.
I love the whole process of like the rehearsals and the smell of the rehearsal rooms.
Like it's a weird nostalgic thing for me.
And I just feel really really safe on the stage because that is kind of where I found my shine.
Some singer Vanessa Hudgons first dance and saying her way into our Hearts and the much loved High School Musical Trilogy. And the music hasn't stopped for her now because now she's bringing her talents to the Broadway.
Stage in the musical revival Jiji. That's right, Vanessa stars is the title character in the Room.
I had to comedy about a young girl coming of age in Paris, and that's a good morning.
It's good to see.
It was a lot of work, very draining, but like, the interaction you have with the audience is something that's so intimate, and it's the only place as an actor that you have full creative freedom over your performance, whereas in film the editor does and the director does, and like what you see is not necessarily what you wanted the audience to see. But on Broadway it's like you
have full creative rain. Obviously, like yes, stay within boundaries, but the connection that you have to the audience is something that's so intimate and the reaction is immediate, and you get that every single night. You know, it's like a conversation of energy. So it just if fueled being Don't get me wrong, I was tired. I mean I feel like I fell in love with theater because of Natalie Wood Westside Story was like the first musical I had ever seen, and I was just like in awe.
Gypsy followed right after that, and I also love that world so much, so maybe Gypsy, but like there's so many amazing musicals.
You ended up doing like kind of a mix when you did the Grease Live and the Rent Live. Like you know, and I hate to transition this so quickly, but we are in limited time. That you went on in Grease Live right after you had a tragic loss in your family, how were you able to go on live.
The next day?
Great compartmentalization, honestly, but like that's what my dad would have wanted, you know. It wasn't a sudden loss. He had been battling cans Or for a while and we actually thought that we had lost him three days prior, and then he came back, came to so I was actually with him like the night before, and I was just like, please God, like just like I know it's
gonna happen, but just please not the night before. And of course I have the night before, and I was just like, Okay, there's no part of me that won't do this right now. It just like wasn't even an option like' that's what he would have wanted. And yeah, compartmentalizations. It's a really powerful thing, good or bad. But sometimes you know, it's like the fight or flight. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.
They say the show must go on, and for actress Vanessa Hudgens, it did, and she bravely performed the live TV version of Greece only twenty four hours after the death of her father. Vanessa sang and danced to her pain during the three hour production, and I came. It was heartrenching to hear her saying, there are worse things I could do.
I went to yoga the next morning and I was in child's post and I remember having a vision of him where the clouds like the sky opened up and he was just like there, like glowing, and he looked healthy, and he had his mustache, which he had had my entire life but didn't hap at the end of his life. And he was just looking at me, smiling and like doing this little chuckle that he used to always do, which meantlet he was really proud.
And I knew that like he was good. I knew that like it would be okay.
But that was a moment that I was like, oh, yeah, like we this is something that you have to deal with this like and yeah, putting it off, like putting off attending to grief, even if it was for a I think, isn't necessarily the most healthy thing. It's not something I would recommend doing. Took a good amount of therapy to like actually break that wall down for myself. But again, you do what you got to do. Like, he sacrificed so much of his life so that I could get to where I am.
Yeah.
So and Mark Platt, the producer, did like a special honor message for him at the end of it, which was really special for me and my family. So yeah, definitely truly sweet. I wouldn't expect anything less.
Vanessa Hudgens is killing it.
The show even honored Greg Hudgens in the final credits with a touching dedication.
At this point, Vanessa really had done it all, from acting in a vast range of films indeed Disney to Broadway, to judging for So You Think You Can Dance, to performing two live TV musicals and who can forget her as the reigning Queen of Coachella. Her impressive resume and reputation left room for a more dramatic pivot, a pivot into business. But first, a word from our sponsors. Now back to the show.
I've learned recently that I am OCD. I love control, and as an actor, there's only so much that you can control. And I found myself with more time on my hands than I wanted. And one of my really dear friends was like, Hey, I think that we would do a great job at like starting a business together with my skill set and your skill set. If we put our minds together, I think that we could like really do something special. And so I was like, interesting,
that's something I had never really thought about. And it took my friend all over Trina to be like, you got this, Like this is something I see in you. And then once like he ignited that flame, I was like, oh, oh, let's burn it down. Like I'm so ready and I'm so in, and it really does scratch a creative itch
that I don't get elsewhere. I'm so hands on with everything when it comes to packaging, when it comes to messaging, when it comes to like ingredients, like I'm very passionate about what it is that I'm putting out to the world.
In this day and age, it seems like every celebrity under the sign has either a tequila or a makeup brand. Vanessa made it clear that her businesses were born out of something.
Deliberate, something deeply. Vanessa, there's so much on the market.
We're constantly being bamboozled with the newest, next big thing.
But the fact is, like these things are out because people are passionate about them and they believe in them, and small business owners need all the support in the world that they can get because it is such a saturated space and AMEX is honestly such a game changer as a small business owner, like, I've found the importance of keeping my personal and my business expenses separate because when you do so, you can actually earn so much
more for your business. On the points side, like with the new American Express Business goal Card, it will see the top two categories that your business is spending the most in per cycle and you get four times the rewards so you can just pour.
Back into your business.
So I'm like, they've always been really helpful for small businesses, and that's why I just like love, like really praising them, because it's tough.
We're going to take a short break for some ads. Now back to the show.
So I think it was around twenty nineteen and that happened, and I went on a road trip through New Mexico and I got a prickly paar of margarita and I.
Was like, ooh, what if this magical? And why do I know nothing about it?
So I looked into it and I realized prickly pear out all these health benefits. And I sent it to my friend and I was like, maybe we should do something around this, Like that's really interesting. He's like, great idea, I'll look into it. And then he came back to me He's like, did you know that cactuses actually produced their own water as well? Like maybe we have a beverage there. And I'm like, Oliver, you're a genius.
Let's do it.
And so like from there, we started working on their packaging, our ingredients, the taste profiles, which took a really long time because, like I said, I'm very specific and everything
has to be perfect because I am OCD. But also like we wanted to figure out a component of giving back and like finding an organization that we can partner with, so that it's not just us, you know, like we want to make sure that we're like making a good impact on the world, and partnered with No Kid Hungary, which I was like newly aware of, and especially during twenty twenty, I was like what they were doing because obviously a hard time for everyone, but like especially families
who can't provide nok and Hungary was still stepping in and making meals for the children and families. Even so, I was like, Okay, great, we got our solid partnership. That was kind of like the last part of Cali Water for it to come together.
Yeah, and then we launched.
The actress and singer is adding beverage line co founder to her resume. She and co founder Oliver Travina are launching a new product.
It's called Caliwater.
Products Expost twenty twenty two in Anaheim, California.
I'm here with Vanessa Hudgens.
She's known as an actress, but she's now the co founder of Cactus Water brand Cali Water.
Vanessa, thank you for being here today.
Of course, thank you for being here today.
But then in that time, since I started scratching maticch, I was like, ooh, what abo Like, I also love skincare, such a skincare girly.
Maybe there's something in that world.
And like Madison Beer was like a new friend at that time and she was going through her own skincare journey, and I was like, maybe we can I put our minds together and like you I'm something new literally, and like that's honestly now talking about it, it makes me realize that like all of my business ventures have been joint efforts. Like none of them I've done on my own.
They've literally been a collaboration. And I really lean on my collaborators heavily because nobody can do it all by themselves.
No. The village, Yeah, it takes a village. Everything, everything takes a village. Literally, something you've learned about yourself in it, I don't know.
I mean, like I guess I knew it would be a lot of shmarracing, but it's like it really is all about the connections that you make, you know, And I'm so used to that from my industry and like going to all the award show parties and like doing the thing and I was like, oh, it's it's it's the same in business.
Like I'm gonna go talk to that owner of that market, and you know, like sell it with everything I got. Luckily, I'm a good salesperson yourself. Luckily I'm good at business. It turns out I'm trying. But yeah, it's a lot.
It's a lot of a lot of like building personal relationships, which I love because I really do love like people like I was talking about you earlier about like being on the subway and dancing with a random stranger. Like it's really interesting, and I feel like the more that I have these conversations with these other business owners, the more that I'm learning as well.
So it's kind of a it's a good trade off.
What advice do you have for women who are looking to start small businesses or just pivot.
I would say a find a good team that you trust, that you love, and that you respect. I think like having a team around you that you have all your faith in and rely on is one of the most fundamental things about being a business owner or being a business yourself, Like you got to have a solid team. Another thing, honestly, is like separating your finances, your personal
and your business expenses. Keep those bad boys separate because there's so much room for you to be able to build off of what you're already doing if you have a business account and the American Expressed Business Goal Card is phenomenal at that.
And also like do the work, Like.
Don't shy away from any of it, whether that's like going to your packagers or going to all the meetings, going to the conferences. I literally go to beverage conferences and I'm like standing behind our Cali waterbooth, hand pouring the little testers and handing them out and having the best time ever because I'm sharing something that I'm so passionate about.
So like, don't skimp on the work. Do it all.
What is something in your life that at the time you saw was like a real negative but now you see it having really launched you into the success that you are now.
I feel like so much of my character was built from my breakups. Also, the tenacity I have, I think is like from starting in my career at such an early age and dealing with so much rejection that like you really have to build a very strong backbone in order to keep doing it when everyone's telling you no.
That builds a lot of character.
But yeah, I feel like my last breakup has really catapulted me to a very very special place obviously if you.
Pushed me to the right person, which I'm so grateful for.
Because he's just the most supportive, real understanding human being that I've ever met.
Well, I also love that you answered with a personal don't like if we're trying, if we're thinking about how the personal and the professional.
And they really go hand in hand.
Like being in public relationships over the years, it feels like people feel like they have a right to weigh in, like how have you dealt with that? And also you know there might be like power dynamic imbalances or balances in relationships, like your relationships have been so public.
Yeah, I mean I feel like I literally just had a run in with the public taking control over their opinion of me in a.
Way that was disrespectful.
I went on my bachelorette and I posted a video of me and there are all these comments that are like, oh my god, you're pregnant, and I was like, that is so rude.
I'm sorry.
I don't wear spanks every day and like, am a real woman and have a real body.
Vanessa Hudgens fans convinced she's pregnant off the spot and clues at Aspen Potty. The high school musical star shared a video on Instagram showing off her bachelorette party, but fans thought they spotted signs of pregnancy.
I was like, I'm literally like celebrating one of the happiest times in my life, and you guys are just going to make me like feel fat.
That's that's great things.
But I'm like, you know, I think that it's a good place for me to remind other women of like the Four Agreements, you know, the Forour Agreements. No, actually, it's by Don Miguel Louise. It's a fantastic book. It honestly changed my perspective when I was probably nineteen years old and really opened up my eyes to like the connectivity of like the universe and like simple rules for being a good person, and one of them is don't make assumptions, and like, yes that in all aspects of life,
but especially over other women's bodies. You know, like we deal with so much with other people trying to control our bodies, not let's not make assumption over other women's bodies as well. So you know, the things that I do have to face, while they're not the most pleasant, and maybe don't make me feel the greatest about myself. I can then take that and share the message and hopefully remind others to, you know, fee a little more mindful.
Nothing weng and being pregnant obviously like I can't wait for the day, but like, don't make.
Assumptions over women's bodies. Totally. Well, thank you so much, Vanessa. Great to have you on. Thank you so much, appreciate it.
Vanessa is still continuing to grow her businesses, which include Calie Water Known Beauty, and her latest venture, Thomas Ashbourne Kraft Spirits. She lives with her adorable dog and new husband, Cole Tucker in La.
Be sure to follow.
Vanessa on Instagram at Vanessa Hudgens for all her latest updates and just generally fun amazing content. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of she Pivots. If you made it this far, you're a true pivoter, So thanks for being part of this community. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did leave us a rating,
please be nice and tell your friends about us. To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram at she Pivots the podcast, or sign up for our newsletter, where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content, or on our website.
She Pivots. The podcast talk to You Next Week.
She Pivots is hosted by me Emily Tish Sussman, produced by Emily eda Veloshik, with sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollok, and research and planning for Christine Dickinson and Hannah Cousins.
I endorse she Pivots.