People who work as characters at places like Disney world etc, what is the most someone has done to try and make you break character?

1. I have kind of the reverse of this. My first job was Chuck E. Cheese. I got to play the rat during birthdays. A third of the kids were cute and excited to see you. A third were little shits and tried to kick you in the balls (thankfully I don't have any). The last third are absolutely terrified of you. One time in particular, it was near closing time and the most adorable tiny girl was so afraid that she was just losing her everloving shit, so her dad asked me if I would take off the head and show her that I was a human. Did so. Kid calmed down, had a great rest of her party. My manager came over and ripped 16 year old me a new one because holy shit how dare I break the immersion. Because, y'know, standing in front of my animatronic clone wasn't a dead giveaway.
   — SJane3384


2. I used to be a princess for a birthday party company. Weirdly it was always adults (usually moms) trying to get me to break character. I'd go to get water for my face paints or something and some wine-drunk mom would corner me and start asking what I "really do" and how much I'm being paid. I had a rule that while I was at the party I wouldn't break character for any reason so I always smiled and gave answers like "well, most of the time I'm at the castle but sometimes I get to spend time with special birthday princesses". You'd think I had just hiked my dress up and pissed on their floor from how they react. Genuinely aggressive responses like "don't fucking talk to me like that!" as I smile and tell them I hope they have a magical party and walk away.
   — undeadgorgeous


3. My sister's best friend worked at Six Flags as a werewolf during Fright Fest. She scared a kid so bad that the kid punched her and broke her nose. That definitely made her break character.
   — Trauma_Mama_xx






4. In the early 2000s I was a dancing gorilla that toured with a ska band. The gorilla’s job was to get girls in the dance floor because then guys would come to the dance floor and now it’s a party. It’s a fun gig, you cannot be self conscious at all and you get to have a lot of flirty fun. The best gorilla story belonged to one of the previous gorillas - the 19-year-old brother of the keyboard player. It was his first night in the gig. The suit is SUPER hot and the gorilla only comes out for a song or two then rests before going back out. So after one song, he goes to the band room and flops on the couch. Immediately a woman in her mid twenties comes in and climbs on top of him. She rips open the velcro on the front of the suit and starts rubbing his chest. She starts making out with him through the mask. It’s his first night, so he figures it’s a case of mistaken identity - she must be looking for the previous gorilla.! He pulls off the mask and says “Lady!! I’m not who you think I am!!” The woman climbs off him, straightens her skirt, says “you ruined it,” and leaves without saying another word.
   — Fakezaga


5. Mostly a lot of leaning close, thinking they were being very sly, and asking if it's hot in there/if there are fans in the costume/if I'm a girl or a boy. The weirdest though had to be when I was hanging out with Pooh and this girl around 8 or 9 grabbed my hand (paw?) and started massaging it. It's sort of shaped like an oven mitt where Pooh only has a thumb. She squeezes my hand to the point where it's actually kind of painful and then looked up at me with this weird little grin to say "I'm only trying to feel your fingers in there."
   — mouseintheclubhouse


6. I'm a zombie actor. When people aren't crapping themselves in fear you sometimes get cocky sods trying to get you to break character. One guy at a laser quest event was going round arms out for a hug and constantly demanding his hug. Seems cute but he was being really obnoxious and ruining the experience for other players. Things turned sinister when he trapped one of my less experienced female zombies in a corner. I have 5 years experience and was in charge so I was furious.i charged in and barged her out of the way so she could escape and took her place. The guy, annoyed, trapped me instead and kept goading me, knowing I wasn't allowed to touch him. Very true. Instead I turned and he leaned in to kiss me and sneezed full in his face. Horrified, he stumbled back and I lurched away into the depths. He did try to complain to a manager but he had my back and replied "well they ARE infected." And advised them that if he continued to harass us he'd be ejected without refund. There's plenty more but he was my favourite.
   — wolfgirl2345






7. I was a bootleg Winnie the Pooh at a festival and an older kid tried ripping my heavy head off. I used all of my might to keep that goddamn head from rolling off and traumatizing the rest of the kids.
   — Katasia


8. I don't work as one but I saw one kind of break character when I was at Disney. It was Rapunzel and she was asking us if we had any talents and she got to my friend who says "I can do a great Chewbacca impression" and sure enough she asks him to do it and it was the worst impression you've ever heard. She almost cracked up laughing before quickly moving on to the next person.
   — CptnPants


9. I used to work at a haunted house during the Halloween season. Each night you were assigned a different role, sometimes as an actor, a tech, or support. Actors are in the front line directly interacting with guests, techs are behind the scenes somewhere operating some kind of mechanical jump scare, and support just puts on a black hooded cloak and sneaks around bringing cookies and water to everyone else. Sometimes a support needs to exit the backstage passages and cross the paths where guests are walking. Generally you try not to be seen, but sometimes you get stuck. In those instances we were told to press up against a wall, facing it, and not to move or make any sound. I was passing through a guest passage when a couple women came around a corner. I got stuck in an adjacent corner facing out, so I just stopped moving and looked down so the hood covered my face. They bumped into me and screamed a bit. Then, for whatever reason I can't even fathom, one of them says "Are you even real?" and full on grabs my crotch. She swooped in from below and got a full handful before I did indeed break character and yelled HEY. Then I got in trouble for scaring guests as a non-actor. Nothing serious, just a don't-you-do-that warning and a retraining.
   — ChrisFRKNRogers






10. Worked in a haunted house in my town once. Was basically a witch from walking dead. I sat on a bed sobbing and hugging myself until you walked and turned your back. Then I got up and chased you. Now I don't think either of these was intentionally trying to make me break character, but these made me break character. Had someone once when I was running at them just stop and look at me and go "do it". You're not allowed to touch guests, so I just stood in front of him screaming until he just turned around and left. Sat back on my bed real confused and laughing to myself. The weirder one was I was sitting on the bed doing my thing waiting for the next group. I was 14-15 at the time, should point that out. A guy walks up to me, and one of the rules guests had to follow is they weren't allowed to touch us. Most of us were kids, and if someone did we were supposed to just walk out and get to security. So he walks up to me and starts...hover handing? He's very close to touching my face and shoulders, but not actually touching me. So I was really confused, didn't know what to do. He had friends and was laughing and calling me a zombie hooker (I looked like a 14-year-old too, I didn't mature early or anything). I didn't hear much else but him and his friends laughing. I was really creeped out and about to leave when they turned and walked away. Ended up chasing that guy down that fucking corridor so fast, he screamed like a baby. Was great. Maybe he thought I was an animatronic I dunno, but it was fucking weird and really freaked me out.
    — fluffypuppiness


11. I was on the opposite end of this dynamic once. When I was about 12, my family went to Blackpool pleasure beach for the day, and my Mum and brother *really* wanted to do “Passage du Terror”, it’s like this haunted house walk through thing. I told my Mum I wasn’t up for it, I have a really nervous disposition, I get scared really easily, I’m prone to panic attacks and anxiety attacks, I just wasn’t up for the psychological intensity of an adult haunted house. I knew my limits. I respected my limits... Mum did not. I asked her if I could just wait outside while she and my brother did the haunted house, but she said “no” because it was Blackpool and apparently there’s lots of gross drunk dudes who would hit on a 12 year old girl sitting alone. So I get pretty much literally dragged into the haunted house. Even by the scary monk dude who greeted our party my heart was already racing. I was legitimately scared and didn’t want to do this. I made it through the first three rooms, but by the third room I was just in utter tears and couldn’t at all see where I was going. Then when we got to the part where we had to walk past the person thrashing around and screaming from the bed; my body just said “Nope. No more.” I became literally hysterical. My knees gave out, I collapsed onto the floor in a full blown panic attack gasping for breath clutching the back of my neck, sobbing hysterically. I had tunnel vision, I couldn’t see anything. Mum was telling me to pull myself together and stop being such a baby, but I literally couldn’t control it. The dude acting out the part broke character (I assume he thought it was a medical emergency) he called for the lights to be turned on and sat with me while I calmed down. (My family continued on the tour) he walked me out of the attraction through a back passage and I just sat in the bar kinda shell shocked until my family finished the tour. I feel really bad that I accidentally made him break character. But dude, I will always remember your compassion in the moment I thought I was literally going to die.
    — DreyaNova


12. Omg a question I can answer! I was a costume character for a major theme park in the USA. One of my regularly assigned gigs was an early morning appearance at a breakfast event for guests where i would mingle around the tables of families, making little kids laugh or teenagers feel awkward. Pretty much standard character stuff. One table I went to had this kid who was around my age (I was 19 at the time) which was usually a bit more fun for me as a character to mess with. The kid stood up, grabbed my characters head, looked straight through the vision hole in the mask, and said "u Wan sum fuk?" Outwardly, I just gave a weird "nope" hand gesture and moved to another table. Inwardly, I was absolutely dying of laughter.
    — JaxonOSU