DISNEY CHARACTER PERFORMER | What it's REALLY like

hi guys welcome back to my channel and first off thank you guys so much for all the love and support you've shared for me in my last video I created about Disney I was really excited and passionate to share about my experience auditioning and the different types of auditions I saw so I was so glad to see you guys found that helpful and encouraging and it just makes my day being able to talk with you guys about that so I am back with the second video I wasn't planning on doing this but you guys had so many requests for more videos on Disney so I thought I'd create one just talking about what it's really like to be a performer the good the bad the ugly everything so I'm going to tell you guys all about being a performer first off though I am going to talk briefly about character integrity Disney is huge on character integrity what that means is the characters that they have created they want to keep they want to keep the magic a lot for people that's the whole point of Disney that's why it's different from a regular theme park that you might go to down the street is it's really magical because of the characters because of the stories too and they really want to keep that alive and that's why they teach about character integrity so the characters are separate from the performers I am NOT Mickey Mouse never happened never will be but regardless I've got Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is himself you see Mickey Mouse up on the stage that he's in the parade he's going on dates with Minnie Mouse he is himself you cannot be Mickey Mouse there's only one Mickey Mouse and he is himself make sense for the purpose of character integrity I will not be saying things like I was such character because the characters are themselves the performers are themselves they're separate just keep them separate I know if you're an adult you have a hard time believing in magic but I don't see you the magic alive and I would like to do so on my channel so that's how we're going to have character integrity and I'm not going to be explicitly saying who I was what I did it's okay to imply it you can say you were friends with or you spent a lot of time with someone but I will never explicitly say I was this character because I think it ruins character integrity and it also kind of ruins the magic a little bit so I want to keep the magic live and I hope that's okay with you guys too I want to start things off on a positive note and my first thing I want to share is that going to work as a character performer can turn your really bad days into really good ones honestly there is not more rewarding job than being a character performer it is so great to hug all these kids and have kids tell you how much they love you how wonderful you think you are and it's just kind of funny it's really funny to see what little kids will say because sometimes they're really nervous to meet characters sometimes they're excited so being a character performer and even an attendant it's just a rewarding job because you could go in there having a really rough day and come out of it and leave work with a big smile on your face it is so magical just to get hugs and that much love from people consistently like that's your job is to love people and be loved by people and just share the magic of Disney and there's nothing more wonderful than that the second thing I want to mention is that you'll get some unusual guests sometimes so one thing for me before I start working there was I just assumed all the guests were going to be like me because that's the only way I ever experienced Disney was through my own eyes and so I never thought that I would get guests our a little bit unusual you'll get some proposals I had one that was kind of awkward because he wasn't standing on he wasn't on one knee and she was like yelling at him like why aren't you want one me and like it was just really awkward like I personally didn't think they were ready to get married they just didn't be kind of argued during the puzzle which I thought was kind of weird but ah so anyway so I cut proposals you get big groups I remember one time I had a group of 26 or 24 come through at the grotto when I was working and I mean it filled up the entire room so that was fun too so you get all different types of people from all different types of countries and cultures and so it just really broadens your horizons and it's really interesting to see it's fun too of course you get some grass Arno is the easiest I'm not very friendly they've had a rough day and they were standing in line for a long time so they're a little grumpy which I saw that a lot more as an attendant than I did as a performer because when you're performing they're not going to be grumpy to you there'd be grumpy to the attendant so but yeah it happens you get lots of unusual guests but it makes things fun one of the unfortunate downsides I wanted to mention was that body shaming does happen a lot um I saw it from friends happening a lot when they were on stage I got it I feel like more back stage so on stage if you are performing as a character that's not wearing a lot of clothing that maybe is showing their stomach or their arms or any part of their body for some reason people like to criticize them I think that happens on YouTube too or people just think that you're a picture in a box and they can say whatever the heck they want to you and forget the fact that you're a human being with feelings so that happened people would tell I mean I heard horror stories for my friends about people with like body shame my friends who were performing while they're performing basically their body shaming the character so I'm just saying like oh well you're not as pretty as the one we saw yesterday or oh you know you're kind of like on the heavy side or oh wow you packed on like just stuff like that it's just like really unnecessary but it happens for some reason while you're performing people just think that your robot may be and they forget that you're a human and they'll just say awful things to you I never really had it happened to me thankfully on stage backstage by shaming happens to the costume sizes are a little bit different than they would be in real life small could be like a size six and then other days small could be a size zero so it just really depended a lot and fluctuated and so there was a lot of body shaming when it came to the costume sizes within performers like personally I was a little bit on the smaller side I was exercising a ton when I was there I wasn't drinking alcohol so I lost a significant amount of weight when I was there I wasn't trying to but it just happened so I fit into the smaller sizes just because I feel like that fit me better when I was performing I felt like I was able to move in it better so I wore smaller sizes and there'd be people like look at me like oh I see that you're getting a size bull well like they would maybe like oh who's the one with this size like it was just really weird because people would be by shaving me for wearing a smaller size even though they could fit in the same size that happened to between sizes and costumes and just I don't know it's just really weird that performers would do that to each other but it happens when you're around a bunch of beautiful people you're gonna get some sort of competition which leads into my second one is that it's really hard not to compare yourself to others because you're constantly performing with other people that's really easy to compare yourself and that can get really hard I know for me it got really hard and there was a lot of nights I went home and I just felt really I guess down I never happened because of the guess it was more because of comparing myself to other performer isn't like all my gosh they're so amazing like all the opportunities they have or wow they're in such great shape and it just I mean we are constantly surrounded by that many people that are just they look perfect I mean they look on Disney characters that's why they were there it's really easy to get down on yourself and compare yourself to others so I do have to say that is kind of like the downside is that you will get body shaved a little bit because for some reason the guests and some of the performers decide to be vocal about what their opinions are about how you look or how they look and so that can be really hard but at the end of the day it's like you can choose to let it affect you or not so another thing I wanted to talk about was that it's hard to see growth in that position so for example when I was working at Sephora I started off as a cashier and then I became a beauty consultant so I was doing makeup on people I was walking on the store making sure everyone knew what they were doing or need didn't need help and then I got certified to do makeovers so I would just be doing a lot of makeovers for like an hour long and doing the whole face so that's kind of like what I mean growth that's what I mean like in a position or in a company it's just starting off at one point and seeing a clearer angle or seeing where you could go so for Disney and performing there's not really a clear sense of growth way back when there was more of a sense of growth meaning that you started off at one position and then though people who have been there longer had more opportunities to do praise or shows but when I was there there was no sense of like earning anything and that makes sense but it's kind of hard to earn anything when it's like based off of how you look like if I mean for example I could never hang out with Princess Tiana I think that's pretty obvious but I could never do that so some things are limited based off of how you look but it's hard to get a sense of like well would I if I stayed for two more years would I actually get to do parades and shows for me it was really hard to get a sense of like growth in the company I saw myself my one position but there was no guarantee that I would get multiple positions or that I would have more opportunities to do praising shows I felt like I had the right standing for when it came to scoring but there was you had no reason of no way of knowing like there was people there who were there not as long as I was I was even there for very long that had got to do parades and shows and all these great things but and they got to surpass people who have been there for five years so there's no sense of where you could go or how you're going to get picked for that and it's kind of hard to tell so I know that can be really disheartening for a lot of people especially when I was there because it feels like you're competing with each other which it shouldn't feel like that you should be building each other up but in that sense you see each other as your competition because if there's so many performers but they can only have so few performers for parades and shows then your chances are even smaller that was the one thing that was hard for me was that there wasn't really a clear sense of growth or growth path in the job and that's part of the reasons why I left one thing that's kind of challenging to do as a performer too is create lots of stories so your whole goal is to create stories for people when they come in and meet you so that's how you can tell a good performer from one that's maybe kind of slacking off a little bit I mean trust me there were days where I was not feeling it I probably slacking off a little bit more but for the most part I absolutely loved my character I loved the story and so I really wanted to bring that to life so I constantly was creating new stories and you have to stick to the main concept but you kind of branch off and create little mini stories based off of the main ideas from the first movie so for me my character is based off the first movie and so I could bring in characters from that movie and I can mention things here and there like there was a TV show so I kind of everyone saw we're bringing things and ideas from the TV show as well so you have to you do have to stick to that same story and it's kind of hard creating new stories too but eventually you kind of get a rhythm for it and you get more comfortable in your job and I would create story stories for like birthdays I would have a specific birthday story I would do and I could embellish in different ways because you do have to engage with guests guests are always so different like some don't talk so them talk a lots of them want to drive the conversation some of them clam up so you do have to be prepared for whatever kind of guests are going to get so you have to create lots of stories and that can be kind of challenging at first but once you get used to it it's not so hard and to close this out because I feel like this is going to be a little bit long but there's a lot of things I want to talk about I'll talk to you guys about some things that I kind of hated as a performer and some things I absolutely loved so one of the things that was really hard and I actually did kind of hate as a performer was when you get adults that will come in and there or even kids sometimes and their goal is to try to break you and make you seem not real so a lot of times what they're not realizing is that there could be other families around you and there could be other kids around you that do you believe in that character and do believe in magic and so what you're doing by trying to make this person be like oh well it's just a performer it's not real and you're trying to break character integrity you're making it harder for the person who's trying to do a job that's their job is to perform and to bring that magical alive and so it's just it's not really funny to meet when people try to like mess with a person who's performing and try to you know make them break character because that's their job and they could get fired if they broke character like if someone came up to me while performing inside my real name we're talking to me I broke character I could easily get fired for that so you're trying to basically get someone fired which doesn't make a lot sense to me because their whole goal and their job is to bring the magic alive for you and make your experience more memorable so if you're watching this and you're ones people just try to keep that in mind when you're meaning of character or performer that they're just trying to you know make your experience really magical so that's our goal and it's kind of hard to do that when you're trying to break character integrity another thing that's hard too is when you bring like 20 autograph books so you have a family of 15 and there's eight kids and they each have their own individual autographed book and so kinda like I mentioned earlier with coming with stories is I can't focus on a story if I'm busy signing autographed books like it's really hard for me to engage with you I'm saying autographed books and a lot of your time is going to set bent on me with my head down trying to sign the autograph books so one thing to keep in mind too if you're visiting the perks as a guest maybe only have one or two autograph book people can share people could take pictures of it because honestly I think a lot of those books just catch some dust on the shelf sometimes they're turned into scrapbooks which is really awesome but not all eight I feel like I'm going to be loved and cherished so if you have a kid that's maybe like sixteen and they're not really interested in the whole autographs but you have an autograph book for them just maybe enjoy this character interaction a little bit more than getting that autograph because I will be spending more time on the autograph then I will be interacting with you and honestly interacting with you is a lot more memorable than what I write on a piece of paper enough of the things that I hate now into things that I love I love honestly we start off with this I love adults who love my character or love Disney or love the magic there is nothing more magical to me than seeing an adult who is so excited and so giddy or even cries like I've had adults like cry before and I just love it touches my heart because I am right there with them I'm a big kid and I just love Disney and I love the magic and I love the characters and the stories and so seeing other adults who love that too just makes my day honestly it makes my day I love that and so if you're an adult and you love the character like don't be afraid to tell the character the performers love it when you just love their character because that means so much to them and they obviously are doing it because well hopefully they're passionate about it and they do love their job that's why they're doing it I absolutely loved adults who just loved my character I loved my story it just made me feel special because I could really relate to them another thing that I absolutely love were just little kids and they would say the most random things like it was just so cute I remember this one little boy came in and he was so shy and he had a huge crush on my character and it was just so endearing and it's just so entertaining too so if you're you've a little kid who's just talking a lot most the time it's not obnoxious or annoying that I'm sure the performer absolutely loves it like I loved it when little kids would just go off on random tangents and talk about the funniest things or even just seeing what kids would say to different things that I would bring up it was just so entertained to see what they would come up with so that was another thing that made my job so wonderful was just seeing what little kids would say like random weird things that didn't make any sense that just made my job so much I just loved it so much another thing that I love too is just people people are just so special and they have their own stories I mean the characters have their own stories but people have their stories too and so I just love being able to meet new people and hear their stories and just interact with them and it was just so magical to meet people from all different walks of life there was one woman I met and she was maybe in your early 40s and my character was her favorite and she had never had the opportunity movie character before so she was crying and it was just so wonderful and magical because I also share that love with that character and so the whole thing can be really magical as a performer just seeing how much of a difference you can make in other people's lives like you have the opportunity to hug people and tell them how much you love them and how wonderful they are and how beautiful they are and just make them feel valued and loved and that's one of the things that's just so amazing about Disney as you can escape reality for a little bit and really believe in magic and dreams and it's such a happy place and you never know what someone's going through you never know why someone's coming to Disney World if it's their first time if it's their last time if it's their only time you never know what that means that trip means to people and so it's amazing to be able to be a part of that as a cast member a performer attendant what-have-you it's really amazing just to be able to experience that and help create that magic for people as well the last thing I absolutely loved was I love people who would engage with my story so a lot of times we'd have people there who just be kind of shy and clam up and just come up to meet you and they just do this really quiet and I think they're just overwhelmed but it was always really fun to talk to people who knew my story and loved it because I needed my story like the back of my hand I knew my story since I was a kid so I could talk about TV show I could talk about any of the movies anything so it was so amazing for me when people knew my story and they would ask these specific questions because I could maybe use quotes or different things from the movie and I knew that they would get it and then you that they would think that was cool so that was my favorite thing too was interacting with kids or adults that knew my story really well could ask me more difficult questions again they weren't trying to break me they were just trying to talk with me about the story so that was really fun for me to be able to engage the people who genuinely loved the story as much as I did so overall it was amazing being a character performer I absolutely loved it that was my dream job a lot of people ask me now like what is your goal in life and then like well I don't really know because that was my dream job and I absolutely love being there and I do miss it so much my heart really misses it I know being a big adult I need to move on and put my degree to use and it was a really big adult decision for me but I really miss performing and so it's been really nice just being able to share that with you guys and answer your questions and talk to you about performing because it almost use the magical life for me being able to talk about it because I do love it so much and it's so special to me and it was such an amazing part of my life and I will never forget it and so I hope you guys if you guys are thinking about auditioning or wanting to do this role as well I highly encourage it it is so much fun yes there are some downsides as I mentioned but there are some amazing things too and honestly at the end of the day the amazing things far outweigh the things are negative like I did mention some negative things about sometimes you could guess that aren't the most fun or sometimes there is some body shaming or people you know being rude to you but at the end of the day the little kids who's hugging you or the dolt was crying because they've been so excited to meet you that makes it all so worth it it's such an amazing job and I truly cherish every moment that I had there so I hope you guys enjoyed this little video about what it's really like to be a care performer and he has guys have any questions again not breaking character integrity but if you have any general questions about what it's like performing I would love to answer them in the comments below so thank you guys again so much for watching and I'll see you guys in my next video bye

Channel: kenziemacbrown

Views: 334,319

Keywords: disney, disney character, disney performer, disney character performer, disney princess, actual disney princess, real life disney princess, disney audition, disney character performer audition, walt disney world, disneyland, walt disney, face character, disney face character, the little mermaid, ariel

Id: V9N_hON31a0

Length: 19min 17sec (1157 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2017