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Dream comes true for Canberra's first Disney princess Sianan Scrivner

Living in a castle, high on a hill in Conder, is a real-life Disney princess.

Nineteen-year-old Sianan Scrivner's childhood dream became a reality this week when she was offered a role as a performer at Disneyland Tokyo. She'll live in Japan for the whole of 2017, where she'll be "friends with" not one but up to three princesses.

Sianan Scrivner's dreams will come true when she plays a friend of Ariel at Disneyland Tokyo next year.
Sianan Scrivner's dreams will come true when she plays a friend of Ariel at Disneyland Tokyo next year. Photo: Rohan Thomson

The former St. Clare's student and Canberra Raiders fan beat hundreds of princess hopefuls at an audition in Los Angeles in August. The Disney staff loved her "princess look" and Sianan also had a slight edge over the other performers - she'd just spent seven months on a Disney cruise as a friend of Ariel.

"The cruise was just the most amazing experience - we travelled from Alaska right down to Mexico - but I knew about half-way through my contract that I wanted to go Tokyo," Sianan said.

Sianan played Ariel on a Disney cruise this year and will now take the character to Disneyland Tokyo.
Sianan played Ariel on a Disney cruise this year and will now take the character to Disneyland Tokyo. Photo: Supplied

"I was picturing the fireworks and the rides and all the people and it was just Disney but on a bigger scale - and I was ready to take that next big step."

Sianan's Los Angeles audition was all about smiling, dancing and being photographed "from every angle you can imagine".

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"You start in a huge room with literally hundreds of people and you just have to smile and show your face and capture them with your facial expressions because you can hardly move," she said.

As Sianan survived round after round of cuts, one of her final challenges came down to her ability to put on an American accent - which she nailed.

"They gave me a script and I put on my best accent and they were blown away - everyone else was American and they couldn't tell I was the Aussie in the room."

The final stage of the audition involved a lot of photos - Disney staff took polaroids of Sianan's stomach and back, and every angle of her face.

"They have a very specific face shape and nose shape they're looking for and your height is also important," Sianan said.

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer - who stays fit by dancing professionally at Marquee Club at Star City Casino on weekends - is one of five incredibly talented Scrivner siblings.

Older sister Brittany Scrivner performs as Marilyn Monroe at Universal Studios in Singapore, brother Sabastian is a music producer and baby brother Deklan is a soccer player who just returned from playing in the UK. Sister Shahni is a guitarist, singer and artist.

Sianan's younger siblings are teaching her basic Japanese before she flies out to her new home in January. She'll live five minutes from the theme park in Tokyo, close to the other Disneyland performers.

What she's most looking forward to is putting on a long auburn wig, a purple shell bikini top and a mermaid tail as one of the friends of her favourite Disney princess Ariel.

"I've always loved Ariel - I love the fact that regardless of what people told her she would always chase her dreams.

"I just relate that to my life a little bit - I always used to say 'I want to be a Disney princess when I grow up, that's my dream' and people would just brush it off.

"I just went for it and got it and that's exactly what Ariel did - getting to play a friend of Ariel is a dream come true."

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