mccullough, peaches m.

[Deleted]

full name: Peaches Magnolia McCullough nickname(s): Maggie age & dob: Twenty-Two, January 3rd hometown: Dana Point, CA current city: Huntington Beach, CA education: BA - Archaeology & History ( UCI ) occupation: Disneyland's Ariel Once upon a time, Disney princesses ruled your VHS collection. Today, they're royalty on the Internet ( see: Cinderella twerking and Snow White snapping selfies ). But what's it like to actually be a Disney princess at Disney World? A current princess at one of it's American parks shared her story with us anonymously. WHAT'S THE AUDITION PROCESS LIKE? Long, hot, hard. You walk into a room with nothing but a casting card. It's basically a small card that asks you to list your height, weight, shoe size, dress size, yada, yada. They've already got your headshot and resume, but now they need to see if you fit the mold. They walk around, look at everyone, if you don't have the look they want, you're dismissed. Then they teach you quick choreography and expect you to do it with whatever they determine is few mistakes. Then you have to read. They really make you get into that airy, high pitched 'Princess' voice.  HOW HARD IS IT ON YOUR VOICE? Extremely difficult. After only three years of being in the role, I've developed nodes on my vocal cords. I'm not having them removed yet, but eventually, I'm going to have to and that'll force me to quit being a princess. Most of the girls have problems with their throat, chronic sore throats and infections. Some of the Queen's were Princesses before and have had nodes removed, which benefits them now -- they have scratchy voices naturally without having to grumble.  WHAT WERE THE SPECIFIC LOOK REQ'S? Every character has different requirements. Princesses, fairies, any of the female 'face' characters are usually on the shorter side. The guys are taller. I'm only 5'4" so I was the perfect height for the role I got. I had hoped for Alice, but they were looking for someone 4'11" for her... You can't be too busty, you have to be smaller than a size 10, you have to be dainty. If you wear glasses, you have to change it to contacts. You have to have the right eye color for the princess or wear colored lenses. Hair color isn't a requirement, everyone wears a wig. In fact, most of the girls have differing hair colors to their characters. WHAT'S THE AVERAGE AGE RANGE? Depends on the role. 'Face' characters are usually between 18-24, sometimes as old as 26. The Queen's are usually older, the male face characters, besides Peter Pan are up to 30. It really varies depending on how young you look, too. If you're 30 and look 18, you might be passable, but you'll be a total fish out of water.  HOW MUCH TRAINING DO YOU GET? Not much. We have five days to spend watching and re-watching whatever movie our character's from. We have to be able to communicate to the guests as if we're really that character. If they ask a question about the movie, you have to be able to answer. They do give us some lines about reacting to non-Disney questions, though. Like if you ask Ariel about Aquaman, she won't know who he is, but she can react without upsetting the kids.  ARE THE PRINCESSES FRIENDS WHEN YOU'RE NOT IN COSTUME? Sometimes. There's a lot of... clique's floating around. The Princesses are usually seen as something like mean girls, but I don't think we are. Some of the girls have... kind of let the roles go to their head, totally act like they're royalty when they're backstage, but not all of them. Unless you play more than one character, most clique's don't have much overlap. Though there tends to be a lot of drama amongst everyone. Just like anywhere when you stick a bunch of twenty-something's together. IS THERE DATING AMONG THE CAST? Yes and no. We date, but we're not really supposed to make it known. The upper levels tell us when we first get hired: If we can tell you're with someone, then you're not hiding it well enough. They're pretty oblivious to it most of the time so it gets a bit out of hand. As long as the public doesn't think Peter Pan is cheating on Wendy with Pluto, everything's okay.  HAVE YOU EVER DATED A FELLOW CAST MEMBER?  No, but if I had, even if this is anonymous, I'm not at liberty to answer.  WHAT ARE THE WORST DAYS TO WORK?  Any summer months. It gets hot. Both Florida and California have scorching hot summers and we're wearing layers and layers of material from head to toe, our arms are covered, we're standing in the sun, children are hanging all over us -- it's rewarding to see the kids so happy, but it's also miserably hot.  HAVE YOU EVER HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE? We regularly get hit on by creepy dads. I wish I could say it was a rarity or that it was just single dads, but it's not. I had a guy ask to take a picture with me once and he grabbed my ass while his wife took the picture. Sometimes they'll hug you real tight and make a crude comment about your chest under their breath. It happens almost daily, even more often during the busy seasons, and we learn to tune it out for the sake of the show, but it's the worst.  LET'S END WITH YOUR BEST EXPERIENCE... Every time I see kids that are genuinely passionate about the movies is pretty spectacular. I don't like the kids that scream and cry, it makes me sad and resentful of the parents for making their kids stand there for whose benefit? I think the best experience... It had to have been one day when I was having a really rough time and there was this little boy, maybe four or five, that came up to me, dressed as a prince, and asked me to marry him. That was pretty adorable. sss

rae, jessica lee, resident