An ex Jack Sparrow Talks About Life At Disney

[rosscoe]

An ex-Jack Sparrow spills on life at the Magic Kingdom

 

Like everyone, I grew up going to Disneyland. Even as an adult I loved it there and went at least once a month. I was an annual pass holder, though not like the freaky ones you may have heard of. I’d see the park’s characters and think, “It’d be so cool to work here.” But there was never a character I really wanted to play. I had a role on the television show Veronica Mars and was working at Coco’s when a friend told me Disneyland was casting a Jack Sparrow character. I had already played Jack as a hobby at San Diego’s Comic-Con and the Renaissance Faire.

Thirty-seven actors showed up that day, four of us in costume. Only eight were chosen for the next round. We were told we would be auditioning the next day at Disneyland. When I showed up, there were now 23 guys—15 that had been pulled from in-house auditions. There was this assistant who would come in and pull people one by one—“Steve, can you come with me?” Then you’d never see Steve again. Finally I was sitting all alone in the room. After 15 minutes they pulled me into another room where two other guys were sitting. They told us we were going to be Disneyland’s first Jack Sparrows.

 

Disney warned us we were going to have a lot of horny women coming on to us. They were also worried about girls. I heard Disneyland had an Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She was very flirtatious, and they finally pulled her because men found her too sexually arousing and were acting out.

 

The male character they had pulled was Tarzan. He moved around the tree house dressed in just a butt flap. Disney had hired these good-looking, muscular guys—even airbrushing abs on—and apparently there was excessive pinching of Tarzan’s ass by the park’s female visitors. Knowing all this, and also knowing what women were like around Jack at the Renaissance Faire, I told the other guys, “Don’t complain if girls flirt with you too much. If you do, they’ll pull the character from the park.”

 

Disney wanted us to tone Jack down, so they put us through an acting class to discover reasons why Jack walks and talks the way he does. Obviously he is based on Keith Richards, who’s always messed up, which is why they came up with the class. “Don’t be flirtatious,” they told us. “See women as trouble.” And they said as far as alcohol goes, don’t even mention drinking. But the Pirates of the Caribbean song is all about drinking, and they’re drinking all along the ride. So I eventually broke that rule, because it would have taken me out of character. When parents took pictures, I’d say, “Everyone say ‘rum,’ ” and the parents loved it. The kids would just ask, “What’s rum?”

 

When training started, I found out the park allowed mustaches but had a no-facial-hair policy for all employees. I had the Jack goatee, and I threw a small fit. No facial hair for this character? Why would you want to glue on a mustache in summer? You can see the glue! I took a day to consider whether I wanted the job. I walked the park, and suddenly I saw the most amazing Belle I’d ever seen. Beautiful. She was coming out of the characters’ entrance near Star Tours and bantering with Push the Talking Trash Can. An entire crowd was being entertained, and that just sold me. I thought, “I want to work here.”

 

I had a MySpace page as Jack Sparrow, and I asked if I could keep that. They said no. Two days later an assistant found a blog I’d written about auditioning. They said, “You need to take that blog down in two hours or you’ve lost your job.” They said, “You cannot give out information about auditioning for Jack Sparrow.” I also had to sign documents that stated if I was in the park and out of costume, I could not tell people that I played Jack Sparrow. I was told that the thing for employees to say was, “I am friends with Jack Sparrow.” I was worried I couldn’t do the character at Renaissance Faires anymore. But as long as I didn’t make money, I was told, I could put on my own costume outside the park.

 

It took over an hour to get Disney’s suit on. In the dressing room there is one long makeup table and a wall with a long mirror. I think over 100 character actors were there. You had face characters like Jack, Aladdin, the Mad Hatter, and you had fuzzies, the characters in costumes. The face characters and the fuzzies dressed apart. There was a ranking system in the dressing room: If you were a princess, you pretty much got that long mirror wall. For some reason the Jacks always ended up in the back corner.

 

As Jack, I had four hour-long sets a day. We worked in New Orleans Square. I would find a place I liked, and the hosts would set up my line. A host is someone who helps run the line of people that forms to meet you. They’re basically your security. When we started, Disney thought they wouldn’t give us a host. They thought we’d mingle. I laughed at that. I said, “I don’t mean to be the guy that knows it all, but from Renaissance Faires I can guarantee you this character will have the park’s longest line.” Disney had invented a Jack Sparrow autograph the three of us learned, and immediately the line for autographs was gigantic. The Jacks ultimately got two hosts.

 

We were the Johnny Depps and the Jack Sparrows of Disneyland. People called you either “Johnny” or “Jack.” They wanted to talk with you or ask for your autograph. It took me a while to get my rhythm down. I could figure out five or six different things to say to kids, so that by the time the sixth kid was gone, the next group in line hadn’t heard what I’d said to the first kid.

 

You never knew when the casting department was going to come into the park and watch you—they came out of nowhere—or something might end up on YouTube. If a character does something a parent believes is wrong, that’s the video that ends up on YouTube. I was on YouTube after I sat in a lady’s stroller. It’s something I often did, and parents would laugh and take pictures. But management came to me and said, “It looks like you’re sitting down on the job, and we can’t have that.”

 

There is a big thing in the park about not being visually linked to another character. You’re told to stay in your area. But Pluto was a friend of mine, and one day he came over to see me. We posed for photos, and the next day he told me it was on YouTube. Eventually he got fired.

 

I'll be honest: I didn’t follow all the Disney rules. I played Jack like he was real, and if a woman flirted, I would flirt back. Women loved it. But there were also women who would have too many beers at California Adventure or smuggle in alcohol you could smell on their breath, women who were clearly sloshed.

 

Here’s a napkin someone wrote on for me: “I will give you a blow job on your break, so sexy! Kim—714-XXX-XXXX.” I would also get offers from women in my ear: “Anything you want, just find me.” I had a girl who had turned 18 the day before. She was with a high school group, and she wrote down her room number at the Downtown Disney hotel. I had a lady hump my leg one day in the park.

 

Read the rest from the link below

 

http://lamag.com/featuredarticle.aspx?id=7016&page=2

[shesaidboom]

Good find, thanks!

 

This guy's got some great stories... I wonder if he ever took up any of those hotel room offers.

[DenDen]

Interesting article, I'd like to hear from other ex-Disney employees if they had similar "Nazis in mouse ears" stories.

[packfanlv]

Great article. Thanks for posting.

[CoasterEricHP]

Great article. This guy is obviously very professional and understood what was going too far even if it was pushing "Disney standards".

 

Disney isnt the easiest company to work for, I've been there, but to keep the image they work so hard to have, I can understand why they have to be "Nazi's in Mouse Ears".

 

I can't even tell you how many of my team members at Universal I had to send back to wardrobe to shave or get on their case about not having a shirt tucked in. But the parks want everyone working there to be approachable to everyone and the unkept look didnt fly well! So yeah.. its EXTREME sometimes! I can't even imagine how insane it is to be a character! But at the same time you know what you're getting into.

 

My g/f loves Jack Sparrow.. too much.. by the way.. so.. uhh.. sorry if she did anything to the guy who wrote this..

[Kennyweird]

The male character they had pulled was Tarzan. He moved around the tree house dressed in just a butt flap. Disney had hired these good-looking, muscular guys—even airbrushing abs on—and apparently there was excessive pinching of Tarzan’s a$$ by the park’s female visitors.

 

Did it not occur to Disney that having a virtually naked man in their park would be a bad idea!? You'd think the possibility for sexual harassment from the GP would be one of the first things they'd consider before adding a new character.

 

I could never work for Disney, they're too anal.

[Teacups Make Me Sick]

Hahaha....this article made me laugh. Particularly b/c when I chased down the Jack Sparrow at WDL, I knocked over a few small children and their mothers.

Face is blurred to protect the guilty.

[mcjaco]

Jack Sparrow, Jack Sparrow. He's captain Jack Sparrow.

 

I don't think I'm ever going to get that godforsaken song out of my head.

[ghost007jas]

Interesting that he mentioned having two hosts with him at all time. A friend and I were messing around on the Pirates Lair (Specifically in those tiny as hell caves) and we saw Jack interacting with a small boy without any "handlers" about.

 

Boy: I'm looking for my mom.

 

Jack: I'm looking for a bit of rum, lets look together, shall we?

 

It was cool to see a character interacting with a guest that intimately - no crowds, no handlers, just them. I wish there was more of this at Disneyland.

 

Great article, although you can't help but feel sorry for him, or I couldn't anyway.

[BeatleBen]

Wow, very interesting read! Thanks for sharing.

[rosscoe]

Hahaha....this article made me laugh. Particularly b/c when I chased down the Jack Sparrow at WDL, I knocked over a few small children and their mothers.

 

[chemical_echo]

They got worried about guests hitting on Tarzan and Esmerelda? Imagine if they had a Jessica Rabbit walking around the park. The line to meet her would be longer than most rides and would be the perfect place to find your son/brother/father/husband if your group separated.

[TheRapidsNerd]

This was an entertaining story. Had a good laugh. Also the story a post or two above about the kid who lost his mom, was pretty cute.

 

The was a stunning Pocahontas at DL a couple years ago that left me staring. Luckily, I came back to earth, said hello, and was something of a gentleman. The kids who came up and diverted her attention didn't hurt either.

[ahecht]

If that's how Disneyland treats their skilled talent, imagine how they treat their minimum-wage employees. No wonder retention is at an all time low.