Bad Things About Disney Auditions + What It’s like

• Insider talked with people who auditioned to work at Disney parks to learn more about their experiences.
• Former Disney park performers claimed it was difficult to discern what the judges wanted.
• Some people said it was hard to take rejections, but others pointed out the positive environment.

Disney performers have to go through multiple auditions in order to get a chance at the part of their favorite characters in the parks.

Insider interviewed successful and unsuccessful Disney park auditionees. We have withheld some names for privacy reasons. Their identities and employment at Disney parks were verified by Insider.

Read on for their least favorite parts of the audition process — and a few highs.

Auditionees are often unaware of what judges are looking for.

Participants who attend open-call auditions at Disney parks often don’t know which characters they are aiming for. The listing on the Disney Careers websiteThey are often vague and only give a range of heights for the characters being played.

“The worst part is just going in and having no clue of what they’re looking for — what their needs are,” Sarah DanielsHe began his career as Mickey Mouse when he was 16 years old and went on to play other characters, such as Alice or Ariel.

Melanie said that’s part of the reason she auditioned 13 times before landing a role as one of Cinderella’s stepsisters at Disneyland.

“They would say like, ‘Oh, you could show up and be the perfect Ariel. But today we’re actually only hiring for Tinker Bells.’ But they wouldn’t post any of that online,”She spoke to Insider.

Things can get awkwardly up-close-and-personal at character auditions

Some past auditionees reported that Disney casting directors looked closely at their facial features during auditions.

Jessica TremmelAccording to the, he played about 20 characters in the park. “personal awkwardness”It was the most difficult part of her audition.

“They’re getting really close up in your personal space to see your bone structure, to see how your skin is, to see your eye color, to see your eye shape, to see all these different things about you,”She spoke. “They don’t say anything. So it’s really, really awkward.”

Melanie said she had a similar experience during her auditions.

“They line you up in a line and they put on some music so they say that it’s less awkward — but it’s so you can’t hear them talking about you,”She spoke.

Casting directors rarely give feedback to auditionees after they are cut.

Helen Planchet was a former union equity performer and said she auditioned around 60 times for Disney. She didn’t receive any feedback.

“Even though I was rejected a bajillion times, I never heard like, ‘Oh, you’re not good enough for this thing.’ I just didn’t hear back,”She spoke.

Melanie claimed that after her 12th unsuccessful audition, she solicited feedback directly from the casting directors. When Melanie was asked about her 12th failed audition, she stated that she sought feedback from casting directors. “eyes were too round.”

“If you say, ‘Oh, your eyes are too round.’ I can’t change that, right? That’s just how my eyes are,”She spoke to Insider. “But if they’d been like, ‘Oh, well it’s your nose’ or ‘It’s your teeth.’ I mean, I was a 19-year-old girl. I probably would’ve gone out and done something about that, right? I mean, I was obsessed with trying to get this job.”

It can be difficult to ignore the rejection of an unsuccessful audition.

Many auditions were necessary before a person was offered a job. And without feedback from the judges, it can be hard not to take the rejection to heart — especially at the appearance-based auditions.

“No matter how confident and comfortable as a person you are, standing there and smiling and having people talk about you and then not pick you for something that is considered traditionally very beautiful, is harming. It’s really harming,” Melanie told Insider.

She said, “Not getting picked shouldn’t mean you’re not beautiful. I say ‘shouldn’t’ because obviously you go to 13 auditions and you’re 18, 19 years old, you start to internalize this stuff whether you want to or not.”

Natalie, a three-time Disney auditionee, said the “amount of value and self-worth”The worst part of her experience was when she had to audition.

“The first time I was like, ‘Well, this is gonna be the thing that makes me mean something,'”She spoke to Insider.

Some people still felt that the fun and friendly atmosphere made it a pleasant experience.

Insider spoke with multiple people who praised the Disney auditions’ friendly atmosphere.

Natalie stated that she met other auditionees online, and that she even stayed in the exact same hotel as some of them before the auditions to practice.

“The people that you meet doing auditions, they tend to be just really amazing people that have like this wide-eyed optimism about the world,”She spoke.

Tremmel also took the same lesson from her successful audition.

“I’ve been to auditions in New York City. I’ve been to auditions all over, and everybody’s just like really rude and abrasive. Not there,”She spoke to Insider.

Although Disney auditions can be stressful, Jenna Parkany — who played Winnie the Pooh, King Louie, and Chip ‘n’ Dale at the parks — said there’s also no need to be afraid of looking goofy.

Many auditions actually have an “Audition” section. “animating”You can find out where casting directors are searching for outrageous acting.

“It is really a safe space to be as goofy and silly and creative as you want to be,”She spoke. “I think that was what really attracted me to the audition process was they encouraged that storytelling and they encouraged those dramatic movements.”

Insider asked for comment from Disney representatives, but they didn’t immediately respond.