“Smile bigger.” Now I know how to get through photo shoots, because I know every angle they need. I do this super weird thing for my friends where I just slightly move my face to do a speed round of each red carpet pose and photo shoot I’ve done. The big smile, eyes up and then down, the Mona Lisa, the chin-down-lips-parted, the “Oh hi!” . . . My friends scream because I look like a robot model shorting out. But let me tell you, it makes it easy on the photographers.
Once I had my new photos, we Mouseketeer wannabes went into the two weeks of bonding and learning as we prepared for the final auditions. There was a music class, lessons from the vocal coach from The All-New Mickey Mouse Club, and I worked with an acting coach who didn’t tape my eyebrows down. I mentioned that and people thought I was joking. I liked getting that laugh. Ashlee was in entertainer mode, too, coming along to do cartwheels for the talent agents. “Come back in four years,” they told her.
Justin and Ryan were huge flirts, and I was the girl they focused on. Ryan was my first hard crush. He tried so hard to sound tough, a voice like Marlon Brando but with this squeaky-clean face. He did that same thing he does in movies: He leans forward like you’re drawing him in, he lowers his chin, and then opens his eyes to look up at you. I don’t know what old movie he saw that move in, but it stuck. I was in love. Before anybody knew how hot Ryan Gosling was going to become, I had a vision.
There were eleven of us, and the term “Top Eight” became the Holy Grail. Throughout my time at camp, my parents kept hearing, “She’s gonna make it. She’s our Top Eight.” At one point, Matt Casella came up to me and my parents. “Jessica, it looks really positive,” he said. “I can’t tell you one hundred percent, but you all need to start looking for an apartment in Orlando.” It was one thing for my parents to think I had talent, but these professionals were now telling them their daughter had the potential to be a star.
That night I overheard my parents talking quietly about what that would mean. There was Ashlee. Would they just uproot her? And what about my dad’s job? I’d get a Mickey Mouse Club paycheck, but not enough for everybody to live on.
The final day came, and I wore an outfit my mom and I put together from the $5 rack at a discount store. I had a Blossom-style derby hat, denim jacket, and a tie with pigs on it. (Remember, my cousin Sarah loved pigs, so I loved pigs.) It all made sense in 1993. The finals were held on the actual Star Search stage at the Disney Hollywood Studios theater. Christina came in, ready to go on right before me, and I almost didn’t recognize her. One of the casting people had taken her to the mall for a full makeover and contact lenses. She still seemed so little, but Disney had done a full Cinderella on her.
And then another girl walked into the theater.
She had these big beautiful eyes, brown like mine. I heard her talk and she was Southern, like me. I heard an “oh my goodness” come out of her and I knew she had to be a Baptist choir girl, too. We had such a similar look. Nobody else in the competition had looked like me, and here was this last-minute—
“Hi, Britney,” said Matt, the casting director.
“Hello, sir,” she said, and he laughed.
My mom got the lowdown from another parent. Britney Spears had first tried out when she was eight, and Matt had said she was too young but hooked her up with an agent. She had missed the camp because she was appearing in a play in New York. “Off-Broadway,” someone emphasized to my mother, though neither of us knew what that meant. All I knew was that I seemed like less of a shoo-in than I had ten minutes before.
Christina was slated to go on right ahead of me, and they put me in the green room so I could watch her on the monitor. Not out of competition, but because we’d really all become close. We were pulling for each other and I did a little “yay” clap watching her cross to the center of the stage. And then this sweet little girl opened her mouth. She was so extraordinary that we all, even my parents, gasped. I knew she was good, but she must have been holding back slightly all week and knew this was the time to go for it. The visual just didn’t match what I was hearing.
“How is that even possible?” whispered my mother.
My nerves started setting in. I had to follow that. Just typing this to you now, I am like, “Here we go. Cue the crash.”
I have blocked out some details, so bear with me. I sang my two songs—Amy Grant’s “Good for Me Baby” and a Christian song by Crystal Lewis—and I did fine. But singing is where I should have been able to play to my strengths. As I was beating myself up about that, I just froze. My choreography was completely off, and then I couldn’t remember lines from my monologue. I stared at the camera, and knew I’d blown it completely. The theater was silent.
“Thank you,” I said, trying not to cry. I walked off the stage and tried not to even look at Justin, who was about to go on.
“Ooooooooooh,” Justin said, his eyes so wide, his mouth open like a slack-jawed cartoon. “What did you just do?”
That started the tears. Oh, I cried. I cried big heaving sobs. My parents came to me, asking again and again, “What happened? What happened?” All those questions and scenarios they had gamed out about me being a Mouseketeer—Do we all just move to Florida? Do they homeschool me and Ashlee?—all of that was gone because I choked. I crashed down to earth, landing right on top of them.
When Britney got out there and did her full-on, out-of-the-box dance routine like a machine, I knew it was over for me. They told us all that the higher-ups would look at the videos and make the final selection. We would get a letter in a few weeks. I had grown so close to these people, and I thought we were all going to be on an adventure together.
My family were all so deflated on the way to the airport. We were caught between the world where I was a regular kid and one where we were in show business. I had missed this opportunity that could bring an end to all the family fights about money and keep the peace for good. I sat with my mom on the plane, and finally she was able to see past her own disappointment to try to make me feel better.
“Jessica, you have to know something,” she said. “You’re gonna have to face this again.”
I whimpered.
“No, I have a really strong feeling that you’re gonna see these girls again,” she said. “Somewhere down the road, you’re gonna cross paths again. So, you better get ready.”
She was right, and I would also see Justin and Ryan again. This story is strictly for the Mouseketeer Clubhouse diehards, but Justin and I met up years later, after my divorce. We were both single, and we got to talking about the old times, leaning more and more into each other until, suddenly, we shared a nostalgic kiss. As soon as the kiss was over, he pulled away and got out his phone.
“I gotta call Gosling,” he said.
“What?”
“We made a bet at the casting camp,” he said. “Who was going to kiss you first. I win!”
“Well then tell Ryan you won big,” I said as he dialed. “’Cause the odds were definitely in his favor.”
BACK HOME IN TEXAS, THE KIDS I’D TOLD ABOUT THE CASTING CAMP couldn’t understand why I didn’t know yet if I was on the show. People, especially girls, kept asking leading questions that showed they thought I’d made the whole thing up. Things people said would remind me of something sweet Christina said, or a song Justin danced to, and I would miss my new friends all over again. “They’re going to send a letter,” I told people. “They said it would take a few weeks. We’ll see.” The girls smirked.