“Well, why don’t you take everyone?” asked Beth. “Everyone should have a chance.”
Beth and my mom drove the whole dance troupe to the auditions. It looked to me like a couple thousand kids had shown up. We were in line for hours, and everyone got a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, which I still have today, thank you. As I approached the table of casting agents, they started talking about me.
“Cindy Crawford!” one said.
“Young Cindy Crawford,” said another. Cindy was twenty-six at the time.
I knew I had to sing, and I chose “Amazing Grace” because it was comfortable for me. Then they just randomly played music and you were supposed to dance around. The song was Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” so I can only imagine how I looked. At the end of the day, only ten people were invited back for the second day of auditions—and I was one of them. Matt Casella, the head casting director, told me I had real promise. My mom kept saying, “Do you believe it?” And I did. It wasn’t that I was stuck up, it was that God told me to use my voice and here I was.
The next morning I went in for the callback, and this time they took video of me. At the end, they kept just three of us from Dallas, a boy named George, a girl named Audrey, and me. Matt Casella told us that they were holding a casting camp in Orlando in a month, a sort of entertainment boot camp. “It’s going be two weeks in Disney World,” he said. “We’ll fly your family out there and put you up. We’ll see if you make the cut!”
“There’s just one thing, Jessica,” one of the agents added. “You need to work on your acting. We’re going to send you to Chuck Norris.”
Yes, the Chuck Norris. Look, I was twelve, so for years I told people I went to the Chuck Norris Acting School. Honestly it was probably just some school he was affiliated with, since he shot Walker, Texas Ranger in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
My mom dropped me off at Chuck Norris and it felt like I was the only kid in class. I think that’s why I was given David Joyner as my scene partner. He was nearly twenty years older than me, but he had recently landed a gig playing Barney the Dinosaur on PBS. Chuck Norris was there, as intense and chest-puffed as you’re picturing. I couldn’t wait for my mom to come back for me.
The first day Chuck didn’t say much to me, but the next time I went he had some notes. He stopped me in the middle of my one-on-one with him. “You have too much expression,” he said as he trained his eyes on me in a squint. “Do you know who the most powerful actor in the world is?”
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to say Chuck Norris.
“Denzel Washington,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. Every person in the room nodded in agreement, which is what people did whenever Chuck spoke.
“Do you know why?” he asked. This time he didn’t wait for me to answer, he just turned and grabbed a green roll of Scotch tape. “Denzel can say anything without moving his eyebrows,” he said. “So, Jessica, I’d like to try something.”
He pulled out a long strand of tape and stuck it across my eyebrows to tape them down tight.
“Okay, let’s do the scene again,” he said. Now, anybody who’s seen me sing or even tell a joke knows I have the facial expressions of Jim Carrey. That tape was working overtime. I can’t remember what the scene was, but everyone acted like this was very normal. The Chuck Norris Method.
From then on, I had to do all my scenes with my eyebrows taped down. I already hated going, but now I really did. It wasn’t torture, it was just embarrassing.
“I don’t wanna go in there,” I said in the parking lot on the third visit, sinking down so nobody would see me crying in the front seat of our minivan.
“You have to,” my mom said. “If you wanna do this thing, you have to go in there and do these classes.” She had to drag me out of that minivan in tears, but that third time was the last time. I don’t want to make a big deal about it, and I wish Chuck Norris and Barney the best, but I will say the experience ruined every single Denzel movie I’ve ever seen since. I just watch his eyebrows the whole time, waiting for them to move.
When my family flew to Orlando for the casting camp, there was no question that we would also pull Ashlee out of school for the two weeks. Our family was a package deal. The first event was a pool party with the finalists. I am sure we were already wide-eyed from the opulence of a Disney industry party, but the very first two people I saw were Keri and JC from the show. So, I about died right there. It was the first time I’d ever seen stars in real life. I watched them meet people and do that dance of “I know you know who I am, but I am going to introduce myself to you anyway.” They were already pros.
There was one boy running around the pool, completely “on” like he knew the audition finals had already started. He kept doing backflips into the pool, totally grabbing everyone’s attention. He eventually came over to where I was standing.
“Hi, I’m Justin Timberlake,” he said, the Memphis accent stronger than it is now. Right away, another boy appeared. He was there with his mom, all the way from Canada. I liked Ryan Gosling very much. I decided he was definitely the cutest there.
Then there was Christina Aguilera, this timid, frankly kind of mousy girl in glasses from Pittsburgh. She was known for singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the Penguins and Pirates games and had a local reputation as the little girl with the big voice. Her mother had tried to get her on the show when she was ten, and the casting director, Matt Casella, said she had to wait. He kept in touch with her because she was so talented. She was just so tiny that I didn’t really get how she could possibly get on television.
The parents were all hanging out, trading stories about what their kids had already done in show business. My mother gravitated to Lynn Harless, Justin’s mom, who was so sweet. She had a whole portfolio about Justin, with studio head shots, and photos from pageants and talent shows. “He just did Star Search,” said Lynn.
“Wow,” said my mom.
“Well, what’s Jessica done?” she asked in her Tennessee twang. “Because she’s so beautiful.”
My portfolio was a manila folder my mom brought. “Uh, well, here’s her school picture. And a Polaroid.” I’m surprised she didn’t have my report card. “You can see her B+ in English.” The casting agents had said to bring a headshot, and the Polaroid was of my head, so. . . .
We were just so green. Everyone at Disney was sweet and helpful, and booked time for me at a photo studio so I could get an actual headshot by a photographer. “Give him this,” a casting agent said, handing me a headshot of Cindy Crawford posing with her hair swept over to the side. “This is the look you want.”
When I got there, it was definitely different than Olan Mills. The photographer had specific poses in mind, none of which made sense to me. “Okay, now look off into nowhere,” he said.
I did, trying to look thoughtful.
“And enjoy it.”
I smiled. I looked crazy. The main direction of the day was “smile bigger!” At one point he handed me a huge fake flower, just comically big. This is the biggest flower I have ever seen, I thought. How is this going to land me my deal with The Mickey Mouse Club?