'Camp Rock' director shares 17 things fans probably never knew about the iconic Disney movie

After starring in "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl" (2005) and "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" (2005), Taylor Lautner auditioned for the leading role in the Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM).

"Taylor Lautner did audition, and we liked him a lot," director Matthew Diamond said. "I think we kind of said he wasn't exactly right for the part."

The director said that they could "tell how talented he was" but he wasn't "quite Shane Gray enough."

"I remember thinking he's really good-looking and quite charismatic," Diamond added.

Even though Lautner didn't get the "Camp Rock" gig, he ended up landing his iconic role as Jacob Black in "Twilight" (2008), which came out the same year.

Disney executives had their eyes on the Jonas Brothers for the film, so Diamond attended one of their shows in Los Angeles.

"I went to see them, and thought, 'Well, he obviously can sing, and he's obviously got the boy rock-star thing,'" the director said, speaking of Joe Jonas.

The singer sent in an acting audition tape for Shane while he was on tour with his brothers, Nick and Kevin. After checking it out, Diamond "gave him some notes" and asked him to audition again.

After earning the director's approval, Joe just had to get yeses from the producers and Disney Channel president Gary Marsh.

With huge viewership numbers, a successful sequel, and hit soundtracks, casting Joe seemed to be the right call in the end.

"He's fantastic in this film, he really was, he delivered emotionally, comically, and romantically," Diamond said.

Joe wasn't the only one who left an impression during the LA concert Diamond attended, so Disney decided to rework the script to include all of the JoBros.

"They were not in the original script," the director said. "The original idea was Shane Gray was the nephew of the head of the camp or something like that, and it was just him."

Once Joe was cast in the role, the execs decided to add parts for Nick and Kevin. Instead of Shane being a troubled solo artist forced by an adult to attend Camp Rock and fix his behavior, they switched it so his bandmates are forcing him to improve.

"They say, 'You have to go to camp and cool your jets and learn to behave,' and I thought it was a very cool idea," Diamond told Insider. "Because then it's not parents making somebody behave … it's friends making somebody behave, which is a far better paradigm."

Joe and Demi Lovato not only had to perform music together onscreen, but they also had to convincingly portray two people falling in love.

This didn't end up being an issue because Diamond said they had "great chemistry and great friendship."

"It seemed almost instantaneous," the director said, explaining that the only thing he did to help them come together was organize a few dinners with them.

At the dinners, they discussed the script and how it related to their real-life experiences to help them better understand their characters' journeys.

Diamond said he "just wanted to make sure that they were so comfortable with each other" before and during filming, but "it seemed almost immediate anyway."

The pair even briefly dated in 2010, the year "Camp Rock 2" came out.

Tess (Meaghan Martin) was the mean diva of the camp, so she needed a perfect song for the Campfire Jam to match that attitude.

Diamond said he told the writers, "She's a self-centered character, who thinks the world of herself, so we need to do the teenage equivalent of 'I'm Too Sexy for My Shirt.'"

About three weeks later, writers Toby Gad and Pamela Sheyne created "Too Cool" after taking inspiration from the Right Said Fred song.

"I said, 'Oh my God, this is amazing, it's a fantastic song,'" the director told Insider. "It's amazing to get something and know how good it is."

"That was actually real," Diamond said of the raging fire in one scene. "The story behind that was that it was called Campfire Jam … and I really wanted to have a huge fire, I wanted something incredibly visual, not 12 kids sitting around a small campfire."

But movie magic made the fire look closer to the stage than it really was. Diamond said it was actually "probably 50 feet" away.

"We're obviously going to protect our performers and our crew members," the director said. "But that is a real fire, and the way that I shot it, which is just part of the directing technique, makes it look like they're 5 feet away, but that's a bit of an optical illusion."

There was "plenty of room" between the actors and the flames, but there were also crew members kneeling below the stage with fire extinguishers and water "just in case a single spark flies."

In recent years, "Camp Rock" fans have taken to TikTok to discuss their favorite (and the most ridiculous) parts of the film

One particular moment, when Shane serenades Mitchie with "Gotta Find You" on the dock, has left fans wondering where all the extra instruments and backing vocals came from.

Diamond said he loves how closely people are watching this movie, especially all these years later, and explained that Joe's non-solo solo performance was all about "dramatic license."

"Obviously nobody else is there, you can see, there's a wide shot and it's just the two of them, and it's designed as a great romantic moment," he said.

Everything came together to create the "rich, musical experience" Diamond wanted, and he applauded both Joe and Lovato for both being so "wonderful" in the scene.

The average viewer likely didn't notice that the campers are only placing food on their plates and hardly ever biting into any of it in the cafeteria, according to Diamond.

The director was, again, flattered by some fans' attention to detail, but he shared that the main reason no one eats in the cafeteria scenes is to avoid continuity issues.

"You don't want their plates to mismatch," he explained. "If they ate an entire taco the first time, but they only feel like one bite the second time, and I have to cut between the first take and the second take, you can't really do that."

"Camp Rock" is about teens at summer camp, so Diamond said all of the chaos was a must. And Lovato's "commitment" to all of it was incredible.

Throughout the course of the movie, Lovato was tasked with a lot of messy stunt work, and the director said they were "absolutely willing to do anything," leaving him "so impressed."

He added that Lovato "wanted to do whatever it took to make this great in any way, shape, or form — stunts, comedy, dancing, music, singing, emotion," and that they "were all there."

Diamond said he wasn't surprised Lovato went on to a "wonderful" career after working with them on "Camp Rock."

Fans weren't treated to two onscreen camps until "Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam," but the production team used two real Canadian summer camps to film the first movie.

"We scouted a lot of beautiful summer camps, and we found two that we used," Diamond said. "One was named Camp Kilcoo ... And then we used additional locations, as well."

Throughout the movie, Mitchie split her time working in the kitchen and hanging with (and trying to impress) her new friends in the cafeteria.

But those two sets were much farther apart than they seemed in the movie.

"The 'kitchen,' which she goes into and works in with her mom, that's not in any way, shape, or form a real kitchen," the director said. "We were looking at real kitchens, and then it was pointed out to me that if we used a real kitchen, the refrigerators could never shut off, the stoves could never shut off, there would be all this sound."

They ended up renting fake equipment that they placed in an empty space at the other camp, located about 20 miles away from the cafeteria set.

Joe and his brothers famously wore purity rings during the early years of their careers. But deciding if Shane would wear the ring was never a big topic of discussion.

"I think we were just OK with it," the director said. "I think it probably was kind of like, 'Why not? It doesn't look like he's married. He's a guy who wears a ring.' And we're not ever pointing it out and saying this is his purity ring."

There wasn't much improvising in the film, but Alyson Stoner got to add some of her own flair to her character.

After starting her career as a backup dancer in Missy Elliott's music videos and joining the cast of "Step Up" (2006), Stoner was given the space to throw in some of her own dance moves during her Pajama Jam performance in "Camp Rock."

"She's like, 'Look I can do this,'Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa and then play,' and I was like, 'That's so fantastic,'" the director told Insider. "And I said, 'Well, do it. We'll shoot it. If we use it, great, if we don't use it, no harm no foul.'"

He said her skills "didn't surprise him," and they ended up using the take in the film.

When the singer went out to film the powerful, shell-breaking "This Is Me/Gotta Find You" duet with Joe, Diamond thought Lovato was a "star."

He added how "remarkable" it was for a 15-year-old to be putting it all out there on the stage in front of the cameras.

"I don't remember how many takes we did, but, believe me, had we only done one take, it probably would've been almost as good," the director said.

They originally considered filming Final Jam at one of the camps but decided to make it as grandiose as possible by moving it to a soundstage.

"You gotta do something you haven't done before. It's gotta be bigger than ever," the director said.

Diamond based the Final Jam set on Jacob's Pillow in Massachusetts, which is a theater inside of what looks like a big barn. Then he started to brainstorm "a complete background story" for how the camp director, Brown, would've been able to get all the expensive technical equipment for a little summer camp.

He decided that Brown was a touring rocker, and at the end of his career, they didn't pay him for his final tour.

"So he said, 'You know what, see all of that lighting equipment over there, I'll take that. Ship it over to my summer camp.' And it seemed like a good idea," Diamond said.

The director said no one ever asked, "Where does a summer camp get all of that amazing lighting equipment straight out of a Led Zeppelin show?" But he had fun coming up with a justification nonetheless.

With so much instant onscreen chemistry between Joe and Lovato, viewers impatiently waited for Shane to realize Mitchie was his mystery girl. But when they finally came together during their emotional duet, there was no fairy-tale kiss to end the film.

"I'm sure somebody said, 'Why don't they kiss?' And yet, that's not the script because then what do you do for the next movie," Diamond said. "What these people don't seem to understand — and they're not supposed to understand — is what they really want is conflict, what they really want is to hope for something, what they really want is to root for things, what they really want is to anticipate."

He added that it "certainly felt" like an unwritten DCOM rule that you don't have the love interests kiss if there's a strong possibility of a sequel. For example, leads Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) didn't kiss until the second "High School Musical" film.

"They're supposed to want more," the director said. "Everybody's gonna want to come back for the next movie to see, will they kiss?"

There was plenty of canoeing, dancing, walking, singing, and gossiping with friends in the movie, but there was also a lot of fun happening off-screen.

"I do remember I had a good time with the cast and crew," the director said. "They were great kids.

"My joke, honestly, would be that I took all these kids to summer camp to make a movie about summer camp ..." he continued. "When they were not shooting, they might be outside playing with a soccer ball or taking a little walk around the lake or something like that."

Camp Rock and it's sequel are both available to watch on Disney+ with a monthly subsription: