Hi! My name is Carissa and I was an ICP this summer (2012) as a character performer. I am reapplying this year because I absolutely loved my job and the whole experience of practically living at Disney and I hope I can meet many of you in summer 2013! Feel free to ask me any questions about being a character performer specifically or about the program in general. Note that Disney has rules about character integrity so there are some things I might not be able to answer on here without using Disney-approved terminology.
Heyy I don't have any questions as such but I was wondering if you are reapplying or have already gotten through? Because applications have closed in a lot of countries already x
Hello fellow canadian! Where are you from? It must've been so amazing being a character performer! I am a little curious actually.... I've heard that ICP's can only be friends with fur characters, so did you have to audition? how is the whole training process?
I am from Ottawa but I go to Queen's. It was definitely amazing! In my opinion, it's one of the best roles that you can have as an ICP because you get a lot of paid breaks and you get paid more than minimum wage. Yeah, unfortunately we're only allowed to do fur. I was friends with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Stitch, Lilo, and Piglet. I wish we could do face, mainly because I want to know if I would be chosen for anything or not! I actually never had to do an audition! All of the emails, letters, etc. that I got before I left said that I would have to do an audition, but once I was there, I kept waiting for them to tell me when my audition was and the next thing I knew I had finished training and was starting my first actual day of work. Training was one of my favorite parts of the program. It was four days long and we learned absolutely everything that we needed to know for the job. We practiced both backstage and onstage, as well as in restaurants. There were a few things that they taught us in training that ended up not being what we were actually supposed to do (for example, in training they were encouraging us to spend up to 2 minutes with each Guest, while in some work locations we were told to spend no more than 30 seconds). We did get to do some really fun things though like playing charades while in character. The best thing about training is that you are with the same people every day for four days. One of the worst things about being a character performer is that you work in a different location every day (you could be at Animal Kingdom one day and at the Contemporary the next). This means that you are with different people every day. Yeah, you get to meet more people this day and you don't have to worry about being stuck with someone you don't like, but many of my friends who worked in Attractions were able to develop a sort of "work family" which I didn't have in Entertainment.
Wow! That sounds really, really amazing. The part about not having a "work family" does makes sense though, but at least you got to explore more ares while working than others might have! If you don't mind me asking, what do you study? I'm just wondering if that has any effect on being accepted in entertainment!
I study Biology, so it really doesn't matter what you're studying in school (for any of the roles)! They mostly just care about your personality.
At the end of Tangled, Rapunzel got her hair cut off and it turned brown. Why is her hair long and blonde in the parks?
Because she was appearing in parks while the movie was still in theatres. That would've been a massive spoiler.
Oooooooh, that makes a lot of sense But what about if a little kid points that out to us. What do we tell them
I know I was told this at some point this summer but I can't remember exactly what it was; I think it was something about how she can magically change it back whenever she wants? It's similar to how now you can meet Ariel in mermaid form, it's because King Triton can transform her into a mermaid whenever she wants.
