Okay, so if you’re like me, (or anyone in our generation, really) you grew up watching Disney movies. See, most people get over that when they get older and come to terms with the fact that no, a handsome prince will not show up on your doorstep and whisk you away into the sunset (no matter how hard we may drop hints to boys??? Like c’mon guys it’s not that hard.)

Sure if it’s a drunken night at a karaoke bar and “A Whole New World” comes on then it is completely acceptable if not REQUIRED to bust out the entire song because somehow everyone remembers all of the words. I never really got over my Disney phase, I like to believe that there are good people and magic still left in the world (even with the looming possibility of a Trump presidency). So, one day I was aimlessly searching the internet and came across the official audition page for Disney and decided that I wanted to be a part of it. You get paid to dress up as a princess and talk to kids, HELL YES sign me up. I grew up working at daycares and knew every Disney movie to ever exist inside and out so why not, how hard could it be?

I attended a face character look alike audition while in Orlando, Florida. If you check on their website.

you will be presented with a list of their upcoming auditions. They audition for singers, actors, puppeteers, dancers, musicians, character performers, etc. and they are happening ALL. THE. TIME. They have auditions in Orlando, California, Australia, China, France, etc. it’s seriously crazy guys - it is a never ending process. When you see an audition you’re interested in, it should give you a list of what they’re looking for. Sometimes it’ll be a general audition for all heights and all characters, other times it will get more specific. I’ve included a list below to give you an idea~

Face Characters

Women

Rapunzel, Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, Ariel, Snow White, Anna, Elsa, and Jasmine: 5’3” - 5’7”

Mulan: 5’2” - 5’6”

Tiana: 5’5” - 5’8”

Fairies:

Tinker Bell: 4’10” - 5’2”

Iridessa, Rosetta, Silvermist, Fawn, Vidia, and Periwinkle: 5’2” – 5’5”

Fairy Godmother: 5’4” - 5’6”

Villains:

Wicked Step-Mother, Step-Sisters, Malefacent: 5’6” - 5’10”

Other Women:

Mary Poppins: 5’5” - 5’8”

Alice and Wendy: 5’2” - 5’4”

Men

Princes:

Prince Charming, Prince Eric, Aladdin, Prince Naveen, Snow White’s Prince, Flynn Rider, and the Beast in human form: 5’10” - 6’0”

Fairies:

Terrence: 5’4” - 5’7”

Villains:

Dr. Facilier: 6’0” - 6’6”

Gaston: 5’11” - 6’3”

Other Men:

Peter Pan: 4’10” - 5’2”

Mad Hatter: 5’4” - 5’6”

Jack Sparrow, Bert: 5’8” - 6’1”

Fur/Masked Characters

Ewok: 3’10” - 4’4”
Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse: 4’8” - 5′2”

Daisy and Donald: 4’6” – 4’10”

Chip and Dale: 5′2” - 5′4”

Pluto: 5′6” - 5′8”

Goofy: 6”0” – 6’3”

Huey, Dewey, Louie: 4’0” - 4’6”

Lilo and Stitch: 4’9” – 4’11”

Dopey: 4’8” – 4’10”

Piglet: 4′10” - 5′0”

White Rabbit, Pooh: 5′0” - 5′2”

Suzy, Perla, Jessie, and Bullseye: 5′2” - 5′4”

Rafiki, Flick, Buzz Lightyear: 5”6” – 5’8”

Eeyore: 5’7” – 5’9”

Tigger: 5’10” – 6’0”

Green Army Men: 5′11” - 6′0”

Captain Hook, Genie: 6′0” - 6′2”

Beast, Woody, Jafar: 6′2” - 6′4”
Chewbacca: 6’6"-6'8"

Anyway…

This is my honest recount of the audition process.

Before I went to my audition with my roommates, I exhausted about every webpage on the internet about becoming a princess/character, what to expect, what to wear, how to breathe, when to blink, how to stare down the casting directors and make them super uncomfortable…. you get the idea. I think that it’s almost impossible to feel completely at ease and prepared for one of these auditions.

After reading 918237585 of these articles, I decided that less is more. I wore my hair in a ponytail, leggings, my comfiest t-shirt, my favorite pair of tennis shoes, drank at least 20 cups of coffee, and was on my way.

My audition was bright and early at 9am, so of course I had to be up at 5am so I could mentally and physically prepare myself for this. We got to the audition at about 8:30 full of excitement and the nervous feeling like we were going to pee ourselves (and I almost did). Right when I got there I found myself and everyone else secretly judging each other, it wasn’t a mean girl kind of judging but rather a “oh I can totally see her as Belle”, or “Oh my god I wish I looked like her she’s definitely going to get casted.” It’s super intimidating because there can be 150+ people at these auditions. So, I walked into the rehearsal facility which looked like a giant ballet studio, got my number (57) to pin to my chest, sat down and waited for what felt like 50 years. I’ve never been very good at the waiting game, but let me tell you, I could feel the eyes of the casting directors on me and everyone else constantly. I had read online that if you go sit in a corner, cry, write in your diary and don’t speak to anyone, then that’s probably not going to come across as very “Disney”. However, if you walk in, keep a big smile on your face and attempt to talk to the other people, then that definitely earns you some brownie points! I really enjoyed talking to the other people there, I discovered that they were all just as nervous and on the verge of peeing themselves as I was, and that’s okay. I found it to be very comforting. Eventually the casting directors began to call groups of people into a separate room based on their numbers, it felt like I was in a Saw movie, I half expected them to pull us into the small rooms, have the lights shut out and Mickey Mouse standing at the front of the line asking who wanted to play a game.

PART ONE

of the audition consisted of a simple dance routine, or so they said. I felt like the most uncoordinated person in the room, princesses are supposed to be graceful and float on their feet and I looked like a drunk man trying to find his way to Pancheros. It helps that the casting directors are so friendly and warm, they don’t want you to feel nervous or scared, it’s supposed to be fun! They reassured us a couple times that we don’t need to be good dancers, we can have two left feet for all they care (unless you are at a dance audition, if that’s the case then you might need to rethink a couple of your life choices.) I’m sure you get bonus points if you’re graceful and can dance like Cinderella at the ball but hey let’s be honest, besides occasionally grinding/twerking at the bar what kind of dancing does the majority of our generation do?

After rehearsing this simple dance in a large group about 10-15 times with the casting director, shit got serious. They called groups of about 7 or 8 to come up in front of the room and perform what they just learned to the best of their ability. Being awkward is just an unfortunate part of my personality so being called up to the front of the room felt like being called to walk the plank. It helps that the casting directors want you to be successful and have fun, but almost 200 pairs of eyes on you is a LITTLE intimidating. They remind everyone that they’re looking for certain characters that fit certain descriptions, and if you don’t get chosen this time around, that it’s okay and they urge you to audition again. (aka all I heard was sucks to suck please get out of here you look more like Rafiki than Rapunzel). But in all seriousness it is very important to show some persistence and keep trying even if it doesn’t work out the first or second time around.

So here I am sitting with my friends after everyone has finished the dancing portion and I am literally shaking I’m so nervous. We were quietly discussing how we felt we did and throwing out the occasional “You did so amazing!” or, “If they don’t choose you then I don’t know what the heck it is they’re looking for!” Trying to stay positive to mask our pain, you know. The casting directors elaborate on everyone for awhile and then come to the front of the room and ask if the following numbers would please come see them, and the rest are free to go.

I’m almost positive I’m going to faint at this point, all of the thoughts racing through my head include, “why did I do this to myself, I could be sleeping right now, I’m such an idiot….” and then, they called my number.

“NUMBER 57!”

Sorry - what?

My friend Victoria hit me because I was in a state of shock, I had never made it past the first round before.
I slowly made my way up to the front where I discovered my other friend, Morgan, along with about 15 or 20 others, excitedly waiting for the next step as everyone else cleared from the room. In the group I was in, they cut it from about 150 to 20, which is absolutely mind-blowing. Next step, the casting directors made sure they had everyone and took us back through a hallway to measure our height, take down our names, and our eye colors.

PART TWO

After getting measured and being ushered into another smaller ballet studio-like room, we were told we were going to be doing an “animation exercise.”

…Lord help me.

Basically what they did was play some fun, upbeat music (Disturbia by Rihanna in case you were wondering - throwback, right?) and they’ll give you a scenario you have to act out without speaking. It’s basically charades. We were told that we had to act as if we were training an animal, and then after a short amount of time we had to become the animal. I look and act like an idiot every day of my life so I figured it was going to be a piece of cake. They had us all go at once and it was CHAOS, I can’t even imagine what this would look like out of context, it probably seemed like we all needed to be locked in a psych ward. I chose to train a T-rex how to fetch, and then I became the T-rex, which I’m sure will be burned into my mind along with everyone else in that room until the day we die. I stomped around, I roared, I pretended to bite things,… it was actually so much fun to purposely act stupid. In the midst of practicing our animation exercises another casting director entered and asked us all to line up so he could do a short 30 second interview with each of us. I decided to just play it like any other job interview and be smiley, overly excited, and make eye contact. He asked each of us our names, where we were from, what we wanted to do, if we were in school, what our availability was, etc. It was very relaxed, but of course internally I had died about 10 times. As soon as he finished up with the last person, we had time to practice our animation one more time, and then we had to perform for the casting directors…AGAIN. They lined us up in smaller groups, started up the music and after that it was all a blur, I think something possessed me at that point, I wanted it so bad, I did not come that far, and act that mental just to be asked to leave. BIG motions, CRAZY facial expressions, I was telling a STORY. That’s what Disney is all about, right? The main thing was that they should be able to have an idea of what you’re doing even if you can’t speak, because that is exactly what the fur characters do. You think a child would be okay with Minnie Mouse coming over to them and speaking to them in a deep booming voice from within her body when her mouth clearly isn’t moving? That’s the stuff of nightmares. After everyone had finished and the casting directors once again had time to deliberate, they called numbers. At this point I really didn’t know what to expect, so I held my breath…

my number, along with about seven others, was called.

WHAT

I was over the moon

They thanked everyone else, and encouraged them to audition again.

Once the room had cleared out, the casting directors congratulated us on making it that far and began handing out papers for each of us to fill out. It was your basic name, age, contact info, availability, sell your soul to them kind of stuff. There was giddy conversation all around as we double and triple checked to make sure we had written down all of our correct information, because how embarrassing to make it that far and mess up by misspelling your name or something. Finally we all turned in our papers, and waited for the next step.

PART THREE

The casting directors entered with sheets of paper to give each of us that stated what character they thought we looked like, and wanted us to portray. It included a picture of the character, a description of their personality, how they would like them to be portrayed (excited, bubbly,) or (calm, powerful) and most importantly: a paragraph you must read in character.

For example, if you were chosen as Ariel it would be a paragraph including some of her lines from the parks like, “swim with ya later!” or “oh, I just love being a part of your world!” and if you were fit for Elsa you would discuss your ice powers and Anna (obviously). Before that, however, was the fun part. We were all taken across the hall to makeup and wardrobe. They sat us down in chairs and did our makeup according to the guidelines the princesses follow in the parks, fit us in the costumes, had us put on the wigs, and WALA! We were princesses. You can imagine how emotional this was for everyone. Everyone there was so beautiful and kind. it was a dream come true. You were to take no pictures once in costume, except for the ones that were taken by the casting directors of your face, and your profile. One by one we were called into the room with a casting director to read our lines we were given in character, feedback was given, we were filmed reading our lines, and then it was over.

Costumes were removed,

and all traces of any makeup were wiped off in order to protect character integrity/privacy.

The whole process from start to finish took about two to about two and a half hours for me.

We then were told that the casting directors were going to have a meeting within the week about everyone who was pulled, and would receive emails on whether they thought we were a good fit or not.

The audition process is nerve-wracking, but I would do it again in a heartbeat simply because it was so much fun. Remember, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. I guarantee it will be worth it. I have never met so many kind, warmhearted people than when I worked for Disney, and the memories will last a lifetime. If you’re ever lucky enough to get the chance to work for Disney in any way, please take it.

After all, “Who says that my dreams have to stay just my dreams?”