Face Characters

[tony609]

My friend is really picky about the princess..lol BUT we both agreed that these two Cinderella and Prince Charming were FAB! Right on the nose! What do you think?This was from MNSSHP 2004.

 

[Northstar]

About the characters looking too old for the part... that's the rotten thing about real life as opposed to movies... you may be the perfect Ariel, working your dream job at Disney, getting better at the character all the time... and then suddenly you're 10 years too old for the part! Guess the career ladder is that you get to play wicked queens next.

I don't want Disney to fire anybody, or demote them, just because they got older. Hey, look at it this way, all those movies were made a long time ago, and the characters just got older after the movie like all the rest of us!

 

[HugsForEeyore]

About the characters looking too old for the part... that's the rotten thing about real life as opposed to movies... you may be the perfect Ariel, working your dream job at Disney, getting better at the character all the time... and then suddenly you're 10 years too old for the part! Guess the career ladder is that you get to play wicked queens next.

I don't want Disney to fire anybody, or demote them, just because they got older. Hey, look at it this way, all those movies were made a long time ago, and the characters just got older after the movie like all the rest of us!

Every Snow White Queen (is that who you meant by "Wicked Queen"?) I met was clealy about the same age as Snow White!! Maybe she really is the fairest of them all! : She should be quite a bit older than Snow White, but I never seen an older Queen!

Unless you meant the Queen after she turns into an old hag, then is it's a costume covering the face so the age of the person wouldn't matter. OK!! I am analyzing too much here!

 

[windan]

The best face character we ran into was Belle at Storytime. She had the large, beautiful eyes, same face shape, and her voice was almost exactly like the real Belle's. I couldn't get over the resemblance.

The worst we ran into was Cinderella at Cinderella's Royal Table. She had a hickey on her neck (yes, it was- I saw it with my own eyes!) which was poorly covered with a small bandage and her black choker. I cannot believe they let her out there like that. DD was only 2 and didn't notice, but I sure did! I was not happy!

Sydprincess...Maybe it was a hidden Mickey hickey
Danny

 

[rabyoga]

I agree that some of the face characters aren't as good as they could be. I do think Disney should try to keep the ethnicity of the characters true to form. I think Disney's pretty good about keeping true to the characters... Last year, we met an Awesome Snow White- she was great! I was a bit disappointed with Jasmine-but my daughter was okay with her. I think that's the main thing- that the character relates well to the kids(big and small).
My daughter wants to work at Disney as a Cinderella or Alice when she gets older.

My daughter told me she thought I would be perfect Elastic Girl... She thinks I look alike like her. That made me day

 

[Pixiedust34]

My only complaints have been a really unattractive Ariel and a non-Asian Mulan.

We've never seen Mulan, though I hope to see her in Sept. A non-Asian Mulan wouldn't sit right with us.

Wait--we did see Mulan in the Stars & Motorcars parade! Though, we were looking at so many other things and she was far enough away from where we were standing that we didn't notice whether she was Asian or not. But, we would notice at a meet & greet.

The 4 princesses we saw up close were Belle, Aurora, Jasmine, and Pocahontas. They were all "real" looking and true to character.

 

[Joanna71985]

I agree that some of the face characters aren't as good as they could be. I do think Disney should try to keep the ethnicity of the characters true to form. I think Disney's pretty good about keeping true to the characters... Last year, we met an Awesome Snow White- she was great! I was a bit disappointed with Jasmine-but my daughter was okay with her. I think that's the main thing- that the character relates well to the kids(big and small).
My daughter wants to work at Disney as a Cinderella or Alice when she gets older.

My daughter told me she thought I would be perfect Elastic Girl... She thinks I look alike like her. That made me day

That is really sweet of her to say that (but sadly, Elastic Girl is not a face character).

 

[erikthewise]

I agree with the OP...for some reason most Mulan's I've seen are in the middle aged category...They usually do a great job with Belle, Jasmine, and Pocahontas...

But whenever I see Ariel in a parade or VOTLM, she is usually... quite unattractive for lack of a better word. Same goes for most Snow Whites, Cinderellas, and Auroras

Well I guess you didn't see the Ariel I saw at VOTLM a few weeks ago...

Ariel is a hard role to fill because she's supposed to be 16 or so. I've seen a few Ariels over the years who are visibly 30ish, and that just doesn't fit the part well. And she has to have a marvelous voice to play to role in VOTLM.

A couple years ago I knew a Dance major who went down to audition for a role in one of the shows. She didn't get the part, but they did offer her a face character position as Alice! She turned it down because she was only interested in dancing. Would've been a good Alice though.

 

[bamagirl@hrt]

We've seen an AWESOME Snow White, Aladdin, Jasmine, and Mary Poppins. Four years ago at the PSB in Norway, we saw a Mulan who was a dead ringer for Kristin Kreuk who plays Lana Lang on "Smallville." We didn't notice so much until we got our pictures back. I was afraid that my kids would notice that the same character looked different when seen at different places, but that didn't seem to be a problem. I especially thought that DD would have figured out the whole character thing by our last trip when she was 6-1/2. But my "fears" disappeared as we were rushing to leave the MK to make the Cinderella dinner at 1900 Park Fare. Cinderella's Surprise Celebration was showing in front of the castle at that moment & DD said, "I don't know why we're in such a hurry -- Cinderella has to finish this show before she can come to dinner!"

 

[maliboomer]

I don't think they have any need to be attractive, just to fit the role.
They seem to usually fit really well, except Snow White who always looks like Didi Conn from the seventies.

 

[Villain-lover]

When hubby and I did the Keys to the Kingdom tour this last trip over easter, our guide talked a lot about the characters, especially the face characters. He said that basically, they are looking for certain height requirements for all characters, and his take on the face characters since going through casting was that they are basically looking for "generic" faces....in other words, put on a blonde wig and you are Cinderella, a brown wig, and you are Belle...etc. They also are responsible for their own makeup..we saw a makeupguide for cinderella. Very Cool! Incedentally, our tour guide had gone through casting to be prince charming and was denied because "His face is too round and his teeth were crooked...and casting is BRUTALLY honest because if you are not picked, they don't really want you to come back due to the large volume of people attending the casting calls. Interesting!

 

[curiouser]

We, too, have seen non-asian Mulans and it was just wrong. At PSB breakfast the Mulan was most definitely non-asian. It was quite obvious, and also quite obvious that they used make-up tricks to make her eyes look more "asian". It was a bit concerning...

I haven't seen any in person, but from photos here, 95% of the human Ariels at PSB that I've seen have been FUGLY!! I may be overly picky because Ariel is my favorite, but it seems all the good looking Ariels sit in the grotto and the reject Ariels get the PSB.

Our last trip we had the best Aladdin ever. Not only did he look exactly like Aladdin, but he SOUNDED exactly like Aladdin!! It was creepy/cool!

Speaking of Erics.. this one reminded me of Zoolander (this Ariel isn't one of the fugly ones):

 

[formernyer]

We, too, have seen non-asian Mulans and it was just wrong. At PSB breakfast the Mulan was most definitely non-asian. It was quite obvious, and also quite obvious that they used make-up tricks to make her eyes look more "asian". It was a bit concerning...

I haven't seen any in person, but from photos here, 95% of the human Ariels at PSB that I've seen have been FUGLY!! I may be overly picky because Ariel is my favorite, but it seems all the good looking Ariels sit in the grotto and the reject Ariels get the PSB.

Our last trip we had the best Aladdin ever. Not only did he look exactly like Aladdin, but he SOUNDED exactly like Aladdin!! It was creepy/cool!

Speaking of Erics.. this one reminded me of Zoolander (this Ariel isn't one of the fugly ones):

This Ariel is far from "fugly"...she's definitely attractive, but she doesn't look like Ariel at all IMO.

 

[formernyer]

My friend is really picky about the princess..lol BUT we both agreed that these two Cinderella and Prince Charming were FAB! Right on the nose! What do you think?This was from MNSSHP 2004.

I guess I'm just way too picky. This Cinderella is better than many that I've seen, but I still don't think she's that beautiful.

It seems much easier to fill the male characters or females like Snow-White and Mary Poppins.

 

[stanncie]

I guess we can't be too picky! like another poster said, what disney pays is so little that your pool of applicants is going to be reduced somewhat. I love disney but i wish they would pay their employees a bit more.

 

[Haysiedaze]

Gee I had to go back to our 2004 trip pictures to research this. Every single picture I had of face characters with our 2 -5 year olds showed 2 beaming kids enthralled with being in the presence of "real" Disney Characters.

In looking at them now, they all didn't look to fit the character I had in MY mind but at WDW I was focused on my childs reaction to them.

My ratings (1-10) in what I thought they should look like: Snow White 8, Cinderella 7, Fairy God Mother 10, Aladin 10, Mary Poppins 8, Aurora 10, Belle at CRT 6, Belle at Belle's Storytime 10, etc....

My kids ratings 10+ on all of them! Guess thats what counts.

 

[familyfirsttimer]

I agree with everyone else that it is kind of a 50/50 thing. That being said, I didn't really feel that way when I was meeting most of the characters, just once we got the pictures back. My DD's didn't notice either way, they loved them all. Once I gots the pics, I did say to my husband that I almost wished we didn't have the pictures to look at, that we could just re-live the magical memories that we all had in our head. I may re-think taking pictures with princesses (mine and Disney's) next time...

BTW, in our picture with Jasmine , she is cross-eyed! Not sure if she was in real-life but it is really disturbing in the picture (please no flames, nothing against her if she really has crossed-eyes, just not my memories of Jasmine)

 

[Sleeping Jedi Beauty]

I think Disney does pretty good casting the face characters. I thought the girl playing Aurora at DL in December was beautiful. She just had that Briar Rose innocence about her. WDW Today's podcast on Monday had an interview with a former CM who played Aurora. It was quite interesting hearing about the process Disney goes through in casting characters.

Just remember, there's more to life than being really, really good looking.

 

[grimley1968]

Speaking of Erics.. this one reminded me of Zoolander (this Ariel isn't one of the fugly ones):

Actually, I was thinking the guy looked like one of the "after" photos from one of those hair tonic TV commercials.

 

[formernyer]

Just remember, there's more to life than being really, really good looking.

Of course there is, but people who aren't beautiful should probably choose a career that doesn't require impersonating somebody who is supposed to be beautiful.