In 2016, I moved to Florida with dreams of one day performing at Disney World. I failed to pass the first round in both the auditions, but was successful with my audition for Universal Orlando Resort. After performing for Universal for over a year, my friend told me about an audition coming up for Disney World. I was hesitant at first, because I loved my job at Universal and I was afraid of rejection, but I went anyway.
This audition was much different that the Universal process. I entered this giant studio that was the size of a basketball court. I gave them my name and they gave me a number. They then asked me to wait in another line, took a picture of me and then checked my height, waist and shoulder measurements. They also checked my arm length and leg length. After we sat down, they asked us to continue to wait until they called our numbers. They called mine along with about 100 other people and we then stretched a bit to upbeat Disney music. After that, we learned a march that was about two 8-counts long. We then were separated into lines and five people went at a time doing the march, about three times in front of the casting director.
Fortunately, I now had some character experience as I was already a performer for Universal, so I made sure to make all my movements clean and big. After that, we waited as they made some decisions and when they called my number to stay, I was shocked.
This was my first time making it past the first round. The people who weren’t called left, and then there was about 40 of us remaining. We then met a new person who wanted us to do some acting. They gave us a scenario and we had to act out being a toy in Andy’s room (Toy Story). We were suppose to be staring out the window, when we suddenly come alive and see the rest of the toys outside. We find a way to get out the window to see our toy “friends,” and then end with a pose.
I knew a lot of people were going to choose to be Woody or Jessie, so I chose a toy that had very easy movements that were also very recognizable; Buzz Lightyear. I knew Buzz was very rigid with his body movements and could fly as well. They played some more upbeat Disney music and gave us two minutes to work on our animations and then they said, “okay! Now you’re going to do it for real. In 3…2…1!”
And just like that, I was animating for casting.
After about a minute of animating my story the music stopped and I ended with a pose. They then played some more Disney music and we were told to sit and wait while they talked. I was shaking so much as my anticipation was growing over the next 10 minutes. I never wanted anything so much in my life; I was so close.
They came back in and my heart was pounding. They kept calling numbers and when they were down to the last three slips of paper, they called my number. I shot up and stood there saying my name and trying not to cry of happiness. There were about 15 of us left. They said we should hear back in two weeks but if we don’t we’ll be in the hire website (or character/talent pool) for up to six months in case we don’t get a phone call. One week later, I was sitting at home and I received a call to schedule a phone meeting with Disney casting regarding a “possible position.”
Three days later, I was on the phone with a woman from Disney who said, “so, we want to give you a full time position as a character performer for Disney.” I said, “thank you. I will gladly accept.”
It was a lifelong dream of mine to be a performer for Disney and it had finally come true.
