A GRUELING series of auditions finally paid off for one Disney park princess, but not before the casting team made some seriously confusing comments about her facial features.
A cast member named Melanie spoke to Insider, where she talked about her experiences auditioning for Disney parks, choosing not to disclose her last name for privacy reasons.
Insider verified that Melanie ended up on staff at Disneyland, where she performed as one of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters, Drizella.
It took a total of 13 auditions, but Melanie finally became a Disney cast member.
After her 12th audition, when she was turned down, Melanie asked for feedback – something Disney’s casting directors traditionally don’t give.
One director did provide a critique: she reportedly said Melanie’s eyes were “too round.”
The feedback was frustrating for Melanie, who was 19 at the time of the audition.
“I can’t change that, right? That’s just how my eyes are,” Melanie explained.
“If they’d been like, ‘Oh, well it’s your nose’ or ‘It’s your teeth.’ I probably would’ve gone out and done something about that.”
“I mean, I was obsessed with trying to get this job,” she added.
Melanie didn’t let the comment deter her, and her very next audition ended up a success.
It wasn’t the last time she’d run into the woman who commented on her “too-round” eyes, however.
“When I came to Florida, the same lady that told me that ended up being the one that did my Florida audition and told me that I was amazing,” Melanie revealed.
And Melanie landed that job, too, joining the cast at Disney World.
Helen Jane Planchet told Insider that feedback like the comments Melanie heard isn’t typical.
“Even though I was rejected a bajillion times, I never heard like, ‘Oh, you’re not good enough for this thing,'” she told the publication.
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“I just didn’t hear back.”
The Sun has reached out to Disney for comment but didn’t receive any at the time of publication.
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