My mom brought the ad to Beth at the dance studio to see if she thought it was legit.
“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?
“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.
Every day I came home from school and checked the mail like I’d spelled out HELP on a deserted isle. I felt marooned, still stuck between being a regular kid and being someone on TV. On a Saturday afternoon, my family and I went to see a matinee of My Father the Hero with Katherine Heigl. We looked alike, and as I leaned back in my seat I watched her and put myself into her life. One of the acting coaches from the camp talked about the importance of “choices,” so I followed the character during the movie, but also Katherine. Why had she lifted her chin when she laughed? Was that her or her character? I wanted to be in the movies, to be that big and important on the screen.
We came home and I knew the letter would be there. It just felt like it was time. I admit I thought that every other day, too, so I am not that psychic. But I wasn’t surprised to see a skinny little envelope from Disney, certain it would be a rejection. I still had the hope to pray, though. I opened it in front of my parents in the living room.
It was a no.
I started crying as soon as I realized. I handed it to my mother and ran to my room. As I remember, the letter amounted to “Not you.” But here’s the thing: It was a nice letter. I only know because I just now called my mom. I knew she would still have it.
“It was addressed to us, first of all, Jessica,” she sa
id. “It said your daughter has a ton of talent, she’s amazing. ‘Keep doing what you’re doing. I know we’re gonna see you again someday.’ ”
I had to sit with that for a minute. For over twenty years, I just remembered the “We don’t want you.”
“Well, everyone got in but me and one other person,” I said.
“Jess, that’s not true.”
“It was just me that got cut?”
“Honey, no,” she said. “They were choosing eight but instead they chose seven.” She paused, realizing that I messed up my final audition so bad that they lowered the final head count to seven to exclude me. “You were gonna be the eight. There were twelve of y’all there, so five people didn’t make it.”
When I got the letter, something shifted in me. That afternoon I had imagined what it would be like to be on the screen, big and in front. And now I shrunk from it. I never wanted to sing again. Not if it could lead to me feeling that forsaken. I cried for days. I know people say things like, “I cried for days” and you kinda think, Well, didja really? Well, I can assure you, I cried for days. I cried eating cereal, I cried peeing, I cried praying at church . . . the sense of loss and missed opportunity was suffocating.
It scared my parents, but they differed on what to do next. Every parent thinks their kid has a gift, or at least they should. But Matt Casella’s words stayed with them. I had talent. I had been so close. What if I got that close again and, oh I don’t know, didn’t blow it? My mother acted like we’d touched a flame, and now we knew better. She didn’t know that we could handle something that devastating again. My father, on the other hand, was mesmerized by the flame. They had told him his daughter was a star, and it was his responsibility to make that happen for me. And, yes, for us. They had huge fights about it, when they thought I couldn’t hear them. When my father would start in on some new plan to launch me—saying maybe he should call one of the casting agents or look into getting me my own agent—she would stop him. That summer I was in the bathroom, staring at my reflection so long in the mirror they probably forgot I was even home.
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