Busty bombshell: Vanessa Hudgens was the image of the Hollywood pinup as she posed up a storm in a new cover shoot for LVR magazine

Gaspar Noé is an acclaimed Argentine director who works mainly in France and has cultivated a reputation for bleak, provocative films.

‘I think there is something always buried deep inside of me, something I’ve always loved,’ said Vanessa. ‘I’ve gravitated toward really needy projects.’

She happens to be pals with horror director Eli Roth, who played Donny ‘The Bear Jew’ Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino’s World War II film Inglourious Basterds.

Last month she starred in Eli’s Halloween-themed virtual reality experience Haunted House: Trick-VR-Treat in Mark Zuckerberg’s controversial Metaverse.

Cover girl: She told LVR in her new interview that she adores ‘art films and Gaspar Noé’s work’ and hopes to explore her ‘dark side’ onscreen

Use it or lose it: ‘I think there is something always buried deep inside of me, something I’ve always loved,’ said Vanessa adding: ‘I’ve gravitated toward really needy projects’

‘I told Eli I will follow you whatever you do – I trust you. Though I never wanted to play the girl running around screaming and crying. That just sounds exhausting,’ she said.

‘I would love to embrace my dark side and be the one doing the chasing,’ she added, noting the contrast with her High School Musical role Gabriella Solis.

‘It’s definitely taken people a while to understand that I am more than the Gabriella character they fell in love with,’ the Spring Breakers bombshell acknowledged.

The image she cannot shake: She rose to fame as the sweet, warmhearted female lead in Disney Channel’s High School Musical in which she starred opposite Zac Efron (left)

She made sure to point out to her interview that before she became a Disney Channel star, she acted in the dark, risqué 2003 film Thirteen.

Co-written by Nikki Reed, who loosely based the story on her own life at the ages of 12 and 13, the movie follows a schoolgirl who descends into a debauched existence including robbery, drugs and 𝑠e𝑥 under the influence of a delinquent friend.

Vanessa, who had a supporting part in the film, said with a laugh: ‘What I took away from that experience at 13 was that I wanted to pierce my belly button.’

Remember when: She made sure to point out to her interview that before she became a Disney Channel star, she acted in the dark, risqué 2003 film Thirteen