If You Met Quasimodo at Disney-MGM Studios’ Character Dining, You May have met a Celeb

A Star Wars actress just shared her odd first job at Walt Disney World.

Before Ashley Eckstein was the voice of Ashoka Tano or the HerUniverse clothing line designer, she was an Orlando high school student.

Article is not border-line “not safe for the magic.”

Her dream job was to work as Alice from Alice in Wonderland, in the SpectroMagic parade. She actively collected the character’s merchandise from Epcot’s United Kingdom.

But Disney’s entertainment department had other plans, as she shares on today’s episode of Very Amusing with Carlye Wisel:

I’ve shared this before, and I’m not going to ruin the Disney magic, but I did not become friends with Alice. I became friends with Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame…

 

So not only did I not become friends with the very character I wanted, said my jaw was too square to be friends with Alice, but they said, but you’re perfect to be friends with Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame for the character breakfast. And guess what?

 

No child wanted to be friends with Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame. They ran away in tears, screaming in terror from Quasimodo. The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I mean, you wanna talk about dreams being dashed. I legitimately, I extremely disliked this job. That was my dream. It was everything I ever wanted. And then this is what I found myself with.

And my parents, they gave, it was a good life lesson because they were like, Ashley, this is what you wanted. You have to see it through. You can’t quit, you have to show up and do your best.

 

And it was a really difficult, I’m trying to keep it within the magic, but a really difficult costume to be friends with. And so it wasn’t an easy thing. And so it was not desirable to go to work, but I saw it through, and I continued to audition for job after job after job.

It was a lot of rejection.

I made it to actually the final round to be friends with Mickey Mouse for the opening cast of Phantasmic. And I got cut because I was still in high school, and I was devastated, devastated.

But ultimately, I was eventually cast as a cheerleader in the Hercules Parade. And it was one of the best jobs to this day.

And I’ve gotten to do some cool things. It was still one of the best jobs to this day. If I could do it again today, I would.

Disney-MGM Studios’ character dining happened at Soundstage Restaurant, which featured whatever the latest Disney animated feature was being promoted. The building would become a theatre space, and currently is home to Disney Junior Play and Dance!