Glamour: So true. I loved when you said we should all try being more honest when people ask how are we. Like, maybe say, "You know, I’m thankful to be alive, but I’m not good." Have you said that in your everyday life?
SZ: You know, I’ve never actually really said that. It’s kind of like a dream idea of what can possibly happen. Maybe I should try it! I do think I am better than just completely lying and saying "fine" some days. But it’s always like, "Oh, you know, things are good, but…could be better."
Glamour: You were a Disney character at Walt Disney World for seven months. We need to talk about that.
SZ: I was Pluto, Eeyore…. This is incredible, but I had a panic attack in the Buzz Lightyear costume. It was dramatic at the time. The costume itself was too heavy for me. I am 5'6½", and I was in the costume that was in the 5'7" to 5'9" range. This costume was better [suited for] if you were 5'9", and I still don’t know why the inches made a difference, but they did. When you put it on, you could feel it. I started hyperventilating. They had to take me offstage and rip the costume off me, and then a driver came to take me to the clinic. A lot of the people that work at Disney World are older people, and a lot have also been through wars, so they just want to [work] where people are smiling all the time. That’s what I’ve been told, anyway. So the driver said, "What’s wrong with you?" I said, "Oh, I had a panic attack." And he looks at me and says, "You don’t know panic." I was like, "I don’t. I don’t know what you’ve been through or what you’ve seen, so I’m just going to count this as a win that I haven’t gone through anything really bad and go get some water."
Glamour: When you were working at Disney World, did that serve as determination for wanting to get to that next level of your career?
SZ: It did, yeah. I didn’t necessarily know I wanted to do comedy then, but I knew I wanted to perform. I did that for a semester and a summer. When I came back [to school], one of my drama teachers said she noticed I was more outspoken or something had been brought out of me since my time at Disney. I also did puppets at Disney World and walked on stilts. It was a really good learning experience and brought something out of me that made me want to do more of that. I was actually going to work at Tokyo Disney. I thought, I’ll work in the family! That was my postgraduate plan. I didn’t really have any plans lined up, but I was going to audition for this big band jazz show that was at Tokyo Disney. I think the concert was, like, for a year or something, and I thought, Yeah, that’s what I’ll do! That was my first audition in New York. I wasn’t even living there yet. I skipped a day of classes to go audition, but it did not go well. I came back to Virginia and cried. I was so upset because that was literally the only plan I had, and I didn’t get it. I had to figure something else out.
