Following a passion just might lead to a job as a Disney princess or accountant to the Hollywood elite.
People spend 21 percent of their lives working, which might sound like a bad thing, unless you have a job you actually enjoy.
To Kristen Sotakoun, the best part about portraying Mulan at Disney World was the kids. The kids who hugged her, the kids who told her all about their days, the kids who, when they met her, were already her best friend because she was Mulan.
This includes the 3-year-old twins from China, dressed in traditional robes on Chinese New Year, who were so excited to meet their hero.
We’re from China, just like you, they told her.
Kristen portrayed Mulan, Pocahontas, and Silvermist (one of Tinkerbell’s friends) for three years. Whoever her managers needed for the schedule was who she would portray that day.
During her senior year of high school, Kristen applied to some colleges, but it didn’t feel right. When she saw a poster that read, “Do you want to work at Disney World?” she thought it might be what she was meant to do. After seeing a presentation on the Career Start program for students wanting to join the workforce right out of high school, she was sold.
She applied to work in the entertainment sector but was placed in attractions instead. Kristen worked at the “glamorous” Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground for four months before general auditions were held.
“I think when you go to audition,” Kristen says, “have confidence. People say don’t try too hard, but at Disney, try too hard. Animate and dance over the top, and show them that you want it.”
According to the Disney Program blog, the audition process can last anywhere from one to six hours. How long one spends at an audition depends on the number of people in attendance and how far one progresses.
Kristen got Pocahontas. Two months later, she earned Mulan and Silvermist as well. But before she could go “on set,” she had to train.
Before she could be a “face character” like Mulan, she had to complete fur training. “Fur characters”so are people in full-body costumes who don’t speak, like Goofy or Winnie the Pooh.
Fur training was three days of learning movements, autographs, what to do, and what not to do. Kristen says fur characters are never allowed to lie down on the ground or touch people’s heads (someone might be wearing a wig or toupee).
On the fourth and fifth day, fur characters are ready to go out and meet people. Once the trainers saw Kristen did that well, it was on to face character training.
For each face character Kristen took on, she completed two more days of training.
The first day, she watched the movie that went along with her character and took notes. She learned how to walk and talk like her character, and her trainer would provide critiques.
Then on the second day, she went to a random location and did small-scale meet and greets with people.
As a character, Kristen had a manager to answer to. And if word got back that she broke character or made a glaring mistake, she could have been written up and eventually fired.
Kristen says there is a deep strictness about staying in character, but for good reason. She saw the strictness as perfectly necessary because people are paying to come to Disney to see a princess they already know. Through the movies, they’ve seen how the character acts, walks, and talks.
There are further auditions, among those who already portray characters, in which managers give scores for animation and dance. Kristen explained that based on the scores, characters can be put into parades and other shows.
The scores are so important because participating in parades and shows are premium skills, earning people more money.
As a fur character, you make a certain amount of money, Kristen explains. A face role is a premium skill, and you get a premium per hour on top of that, which Kristen says didn’t make much sense because fur characters are in heavy costumes with no fans in the hot Orlando sun.
Mulan was the easiest character to portray because she wasn’t a traditional princess.
“She didn’t need a prince to save her,” Kristen says. “Moms would come up to me with their daughters and say, ‘We watch it all the time. We love the message.’ People were excited to see Mulan because she kicks the guys’ butts.”
Kristen felt connected to Mulan and valued her strength. She has a tattoo of Mulan’s comb to comemorate her time portraying Mulan.
Kristen had less fun portraying Pocahontas.
Aren’t you dead?
I read about you. You died of smallpox!
Kristen laughed recalling how she had to routinely deflect comments while portraying Pocahontas.
And people had a problem with her wig, too.
“It’s long black hair, and it looks like Cher’s wig,” Kristen recalled.
Ultimately, the job was great for Kristen, but it involved high pressure and high drama at times. Kristen says if you gain weight and don’t fill the “silhouette,” then you’re out of the job. If you get acne, you get 30 days to clear up your skin.
Kristen described the face character roles as so coveted that there is animosity toward those who have them.
“The job is amazing and fun and great but not the end of the world if it doesn’t happen,” she says. “If you audition and don’t go through, it’s because you don’t look like a cartoon character, and no one should be sad that they don’t look like a cartoon character.”
But sometimes a life with the stars doesn’t require an audition.
Kathy Edwards Lucas has handed paychecks to the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Lawrence, and Reese Witherspoon.
She’s traveled the world on “somebody else’s dime.”
Kathy is a freelance payroll accountant. She works on location paying actors, crew members, writers, directors, and all the other people that make a movie happen.
Kathy has worked in accounting for 24 years, six of which were at the studio level, and the rest freelance. According to IMDb, she’s worked on I, Robot, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story; Warm Bodies; Hunger Games: Mockingjay (parts 1 and 2); and many more.
Kathy described freelance accounting as nomadic. She normally works at a job for four to five months, then she needs to find another one. The length of the job depends on the size of the budget.
Mockingjay was two consecutive films, so she was there, in Atlanta, for eight months. She spent nearly two years in Vancouver, Canada, working on X-2 (the second installment of the X-Men franchise) and then I, Robot after a short two-month break.
Two months off may seem lavish, but it’s completely necessary. Kathy explained how most jobs involve grueling 10-to-14-hour days, six days per week.
Greg Arnott, an instructor of accounting at Ball State University, says payroll accountants are responsible for maintaining the payroll records, which include each employee’s personnel file.
Payroll accountants must comply with a lot of federal and state laws concerning employees. Each pay period, they collect information regarding hours worked for hourly employees and salary information for salaried employees.
They then determine the amount the employee earned and the various amounts to be withheld from the employee’s paycheck for taxes, etc. The payroll checks or direct deposits are then processed for each employee.
They also prepare monthly, quarterly, and annual forms for federal and state tax purposes, reporting the company’s total payroll and amounts withheld for taxes.
Dennis Hickle, a lecturer of accounting at Ball State, says a good payroll accountant should be very detail-oriented in order to ensure that all employees are properly paid. This individual must be able to do very detailed and repetitive tasks without getting bored.
The level of detail involved in payroll processing and the risks associated with not handling payroll properly leads many companies to outsource the process.
Kathy’s job involves a lot of traveling. She’s traveled all over the United States and Europe and even worked in South America. Some of the most memorable places she has visited include Machu Picchu in Cuzco, Peru, and the island of Sardinia in Italy.
Although Kathy often rubs shoulders with famous actors, she rarely feels starstruck. For the most part, she leaves them alone. She says they’re just people like you and me.
“I met Paul Rudd, Reese Witherspoon… They’re all really nice, yeah, but why wouldn’t they be? I’m bringing them money,” Kathy says, laughing.
Kathy, who was working in Key West, Florida, at the time, was convinced by her sister to try the job out. She promised to “get her in the business.”
Kathy knew she wanted to do accounting, but didn’t want to be a certified public accountant, so she majored in hotel and restaurant management at Georgia State University.
In 1994, Kathy worked on her first show with her brother-in-law; her sister didn’t work with her on account of being pregnant. Kathy says her sister opened up doors for her in the business.
She has been working as a “glorified bookkeeper” ever since.
To Kathy, the pros outweigh the cons. Payroll suits her brain, and she enjoys the process. The money is decent, and insurance is great.
While on location, she receives per diem, a hotel room and a car rental.
“I don’t have any regrets about anything,” Kathy says, “but there have just been a lot of family things that I have missed because I’ve been on location.”
The job takes a lot out of her—60 hours a week will take a lot out of anyone. But she has the flexibility, being freelance, to take time off when she finishes a job.
Kathy doesn’t know when she’ll be done with her current job (the second, third, fourth, and fifth installments of James Cameron’s Avatar franchise), but when she is, she and her husband are going to Italy.
