Hanging on Hollywood with Hannah

If you have been following my blog for any length of time, y'all know that I work with Jessica who looks so much like Miley Cyrus that she actually played her double on the AMA awards. She gets stopped all the time by people asking to take her picture, she's been photographed by the paparazzi and even followed by some crazy fans.

I thought Jessica should take advantage of the opening day weekend of the new Hannah Montana movie. Somehow, I talked her into dressing up as Hannah Montana and hanging out on Hollywood Blvd. with all the other costumed characters like Spiderman, Batman etc.

GloZell and I played the roles of guardians or "entourage" I suppose you could say. Really we just wanted to make sure she was safe, and I was very curious about the unwritten code between the characters - how would they handle someone new on their turf, how much space do you have to have between each other, how do you ask for tips.

We started on the side of the street in front of the El Capitan theater. Security came out and like a mad hornet they wouldn't stop buzzing around us until we crossed the street. They claim that the sidewalk in front of the theater is private property and they would call the cops because we were trespassing. That's a pretty ridiculous claim if you ask me, a public sidewalk is "private" property??? It wasn't worth arguing with the security guy since the bigger crowd was across the street so we left without incident.


Finding a place to hang out as a character is sort of like finding a spot on the beach to claim for the day. You don't want to be too close to the other characters, so you just kind of find a spot that feels right. We found a spot in between Spiderman and Jason (from the horror films) with the El Capitan theater playing the Hannah Montana movie behind us and we were ready to go.


Several of the characters were checking us out, and many came over and said hi. Quite a few characters including Superman and SpongeBob even gave Jessica complements on her look. Overall, everyone was very friendly, and welcoming. Of course, it may have been different if Jessica had come out as a character that is already there, you wouldn't want to upset the Tomb Raider girl or Marilyn Monroe.

Spiderman (in the black spidey outfit) gave us the low down on how to ask for tips. The tourists often think that the characters are already paid (like at Disneyland) and they don't realize that the characters all work for tips. The trick is to let the tourist take a photo with you, then gently let them know that you work for tips. 99% of the time the tourists will tip.

Once "Hannah Montana" was spotted it was non-stop picture taking for the two and a half hours we all hung out there. So many different people wanted to take their photo with Hannah too. Of course just about every girl under the age of 11 was all about getting a photo op with Hannah, but she also had several parents and grandparents who were going to email the photo back home. She even had this hardcore vato with a huge tattoo across his neck ask to take a photo with sweet little Hannah. (I can't believe I didn't think to take a photo at the time!!)

She had a few kids that were so sure it was Hannah that you could tell them otherwise, they were just awestruck.


We all had a great time, although even in just the short time we were out there Jessica's cheeks were hurting from all the smiling and she was thinking that wearing sneakers would have been a better choice than the cute wedge heeled boots she had on.
On average she was tipped $1 - $2 sometimes more. She probably doesn't want me to blog how much she made, but I'll just say that it was worth her time.