When I Grow Up septoct 2026

When I Grow Up I Want To… Be A Scare Actor!

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If you attended SeaWorld’s Howl-O-Scream last year, then you may have encountered Shatter, a freakish burned woman, wandering the streets among many other ghastly ghouls and craven beings.

For many Halloween enthusiasts, playing a favorite villain, not to mention getting paid to do so, is a dream come true.

So how exactly do you become a person who gives nightmares for a living? Orlando Parenting Magazine chatted with Shatter herself about getting the coolest and creepiest gig in town.

Orlando Parenting Magazine: Tell me a little about yourself and what led you to your current role as SeaWorld Howl-O-Scream scare actor?

Shatter: I grew up in Miami wanting to be a child psychologist. Then, in high school, I was out at karaoke with my sister and my dad. My sister and I went up and sang “Hoedown Throwdown”. As we were walking off-stage, a lady approached me with a business card and said, “You are incredible. I’m the owner of this party company. We want you to come work for us.” I started working as a costumed character at this party company for the entirety of high school. Once I started doing that, I was like, ‘I want to do this. I want to continue to do this. This is really fun.’

OPM: What kind of characters did you play?

Shatter: I did everything. I was Michael Jackson one time. I was Dora the Explorer, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Minnie Mouse. I also did face painting, DJing, hosting, balloon animals … all of the things! [At that time] my sister was living in Orlando, so I missed her and said, what’s a better place to move than Orlando? It was meant to be because the theme parks are there. When I first moved, I started performing with Gaylord Palms during their ICE! event when DreamWorks was still a part of it. I got to work with a few characters there, and then I moved on to SeaWorld’s Spooktacular before taking a few years off.

OPM: Tell me about your most recent role at Howl-O-Scream?

Shatter: Last year, I was cast as Shatter in Ashes of the Forgotten [a post-apocalyptic scare zone that’s ruled by the event’s icon character, Havoc]. I literally had the best season of my entire life. The guests responded to it extremely well, and I got to be extremely scary, which was really fun. To paint the scene, we were in essentially a scrap yard and part of Havoc’s world. Everyone there was really manic and crazy, full of havoc, if you will.

OPM: What’s your transformation like – how long did it take to get in character?

Shatter: In the middle of our scare zone, we had a fire pit, so we had burns all over us. We were kind of scuffed up and dirty. We kind of looked like bikers in a way, kind of punk rock-ish. From the time that I would clock in and get into costume and done with makeup, it would take about a little over an hour.

OPM: How do you practice scaring people?

Shatter: For me personally, there’s no way I can practice. I feed off the mood of the guest as they’re coming in. I did have a few different bits though — like last year there was a girl cast in my zone, and we looked almost identical, so we’d pretend to be twin sisters. We would walk around holding hands, and whenever one of us would squeeze, we would scream at the same time.

OPM: Do you have a memorable scare experience?

Shatter:There was a younger girl who ended up coming every single weekend, and she was wonderful. On her very first night, I was the very first scare actor that she had ever interacted with. Naturally, I scared her, and she screamed bloody murder and dropped to the floor. Because we were the first scare zone, it was a holding area for the rest of the park since SeaWorld wasn’t actually open yet. When she stood up, she tried to run through, literally moving guests out of her way to try to get away from me. Not that I was harassing her, but I was following behind. Then, when I heard her mom calling her name, I started calling her name too, and she freaked, ‘Oh my God, why does she know my name?’

OPM: What’s it like for your children to have a mom as a scare actor?

Shatter: My nine-year-old thinks it’s really cool. My four-year-old is terrified of me. He does not like thinking about the fact that I get ugly and scary looking. He will not look at pictures of me when I am in my costume. He won’t watch videos. He wants nothing to do with it.

OPM: What advice would you give someone who wants to be a scare actor?

Shatter: I would tell them to really ground themselves and root into what they want and just go for it because the hardest part is really starting and auditioning.

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Originally published in the September/October 2026 Issue of Orlando Parenting Magazine