10 Celebrities Who Worked for Disney Parks Before Becoming Famous (Including One Who Fainted in the Tigger Suit)

10 Celebrities Who Worked for Disney Parks Before Becoming Famous (Including One Who Fainted in the Tigger Suit) https://ift.tt/wanh23O

From Michelle Pfeiffer to Wayne Brady to Steve Martin, these stars got their start at the happiest place on Earth

*Credit: Dia Dipasupil/Getty; Jamie McCarthy/Getty; Noam Galai/Getty*

Celebrities have been known to take on odd jobs as they wait for their big break to come. From waitressing, to teaching, to stripping, stars have worked in a number of fields to make money (and get in some serious people watching).

For some celebrities, they were on the payroll at the “happiest place on earth,” the Disney Parks, where employees are known as cast members. Celebrities such as Michelle Pfeiffer, Kevin Costner and Wayne Brady got in some acting practice, playing Disney characters for crowds before going on to the big screen. Still other stars had slightly less glamorous jobs for the House of Mouse, but still got to be close to the magic.

ahed, see the celebrities who worked at Disney Parks before becoming famous — including one person who fainted out of sheer excitement on the first day, and another who quit before they could even get started.

01 of 10

Will Ferrell

Will Ferrell seems well-suited for the type of crowd work that playing a Disney character requires, but after finding out he wouldn’t get his pick of characters on Day One, he reconsidered his employment options.

“So, I got a job, and you were paid for the orientation day to work at Disneyland. And I thought that I was going to be assigned, you know, one of the really fun jobs, like the Jungle Cruise operator,” he told pal Amy Poehler on her Good Hang podcast. “And I find out, oh no, those guys work there for 8 years before [they get that role], so they assign me one of the front kiosks for selling tickets.”

Ferrell, who had an alternate offer, then masterminded an exit strategy.

“I was too embarrassed to call up Disneyland. So my friend John called on my behalf and said, ‘Uh, I will be quitting after one day.’ And they asked, ‘Okay, reason for leaving?’ He said, ‘I have a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys,’ and they went, ‘Thank you very much,’” he revealed.

“So somewhere there’s a file at Disney corporate. It says, ‘Will Ferrell worked for one day. Reason for leaving: Tryout with the Dallas Cowboys football team.’”

02 of 10

Kevin Costner

Before he snagged the role of Jim White in Disney’s McFarland, USA, Kevin Costner already had some history with the company. The actor worked at Disneyland as a Jungle Cruise skipper back in the 1970s. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he met his first wife, Cindy Silva, while she was working as Snow White there.

03 of 10

Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle Pfeiffer also honed her acting skills at the amusement park, where she worked Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade as Alice from Alice in Wonderland.

04 of 10

Steve Martin

During his early years, Steve Martin was known to incorporate a little bit of magic into his standup acts, a skill he perfected while working at Disneyland in his youth. The comedy legend was an employee of the famed park from 10 to 18 years old, where he sold guide books before eventually manning the Fantasyland magic shop.

“Disneyland had just been built, and I couldn’t think of anything more exciting than to work on Disneyland. So I went on my bicycle” to ask for a job, he recalled on Howard Stern. “One time I went and bought a

05 of 10

Wayne Brady

Wayne Brady’s love of song and dance served him well in his job at Disney World, where he played a Toy Soldier, as well as “a friend of Tigger and Goofy and Baloo the bear.”

On Seth Rudetsky’s Stars in the House YouTube show in May 2020, he told a story about how even the most well-intentioned Tigger is no match for the Orlando heat; in a recap for Playbill, Rudetsky said Brady’s first time dancing in the costume in a parade led to some breakdancing, “giving it your all” and eventually fainting. “he said he feels bad for the kids who are now adults and have severe issues from what he calls ‘seeing Tigger die on Main Street,’ “ Rudetsky wrote.

His hope was to get a role in the Rap’n Roll show, but he got fired the day before rehearsal due to a run-in with a VIP guest that landed him on the “no rehire” list. But Disney obviously didn’t hold it against him forever; they even let him come back to perform with the Dapper Dans in 2014.

06 of 10

Jennifer Hudson

Though not a Disney park employee, per se, before Jennifer Hudson was taking the world by storm with her powerhouse vocals, she was serenading Disney Cruise Line passengers as they embarked on their voyages. The company even called her back to christen the Disney Dream before it set sail in 2011.

07 of 10

Richard Carpenter

If the whimsical musicality of “Top of the World” by The Carpenters feels Disney-esque, it’s because Richard and his songwriter pal John Bettis used to sing on Main Street, where they were required to play 1900s music but occasionally would play contemporary songs by request, which led to their dismissal. The song “Mr. Guder” on the “Close to You” album was inspired by their supervisor, Vic Guder, who finally let them go after several warnings, but at least their tenure wasn’t for nothing: Rolling Stone reported the duo would write songs on Pepsi napkins during their downtime.

08 of 10

Taye Diggs

The Good Morning America crew took a stroll down memory lane with Taye Diggs back in 2024 and got the actor to open up about his time working at Disneyland Tokyo.

“I did a 10-month run of a show called Sebastian’s Caribbean Carnival in Tokyo Disneyland, and the theme was Little Mermaid. [So] it was me and Sebastian and a whole bunch of beautiful Japanese people. It was a show that made me a good amount of money and was a lot of fun.”

09 of 10

Kevin Richardson

Kevin Richardson was working at Disney World up until he rose to global superstardom as part of the Backstreet Boys. The singer worked the Disney-MGM Studios Studio Backlot Tour and played a wide range of characters including including Aladdin, Prince Eric and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

“I would give a 25-minute guided tour of the Studio Backlot,” he told ABC, before reciting some of his old lines. “It was an inspiring, incredible place to come to work everyday,” he later added.

10 of 10

Taboo

While the Black Eyed Peas were still finding their footing in the music world in the early ‘90s, rapper Taboo — real name Jaime Luis Gomez — worked as a custodian at Disneyland to provide for his son. “I emptied the trash and wiped down tables,” he told The Orange County Register in 2011. “But my job that I remember the most was picking up horse manure for the Electrical Parade.

“I didn’t want to be a deadbeat dad, so I said, ‘OK, my mission is to provide for my son in the future,” he told the publication, revealing he’d work at the park during the day, then take on various gigs during the night.

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