Tucsonan Michael Hemphill creates a chilling atmosphere at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. He won a contest to work at the attraction.

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One of Disneyland's newest stars is from Tucson.

Job-hunting Web site CareerBuilder.com and Disneyland recently held a contest where anyone could apply for a "dream job" at Disneyland — honorary pirates, Jungle Cruise skippers, Haunted Mansion butlers or maids, parade performers and princesses-in-waiting.

Contestants uploaded a short video on YouTube of themselves performing in character, and were then chosen through online votes.

Five winners were picked for each of the five different roles and then got to play them for a few days at the theme park in Anaheim, Calif.

Pima Community College student Michael Hemphill, 20, was one of the five lucky Haunted Mansion winners (and the only one from Arizona). Check out his audition video on youtube.com/ watch?v=W2Iq54un1Ws.

We caught up with Hemphill on Monday as he was just starting his tour of duty in the Haunted Mansion.

"It's a four-day, three-night event. Part of it was for the Nemo attraction (on Monday, Disneyland reopened the long-dormant Submarine Voyage attraction as "Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage"). The rest is pretty much training and being prepared to work as a butler for the Haunted Mansion. Yesterday we had training and had a chance to sort of practice with actual guests, and today is pretty much the full-blown working as a butler at the Haunted Mansion."

How's that going so far?

"It's been going great. They have us all over the place. We were in the 'expanding room,' they had us go backstage — it's really been an amazing event."

What prompted you to enter the contest? You must be a pretty big Disneyland fan.

"Yes, I am a fan of both the Disney parks and the Haunted Mansion. I guess I sort of ran into it by accident on CareerBuilder. I was in the middle of doing some college work, and I sort of said, 'OK, I'll give this a shot,' and I won the job. It was sort of a video résumé, and we had people looking at them and saying what they like and voting on them."

What do you think endeared you to the voting public?

"I'm not sure. I guess my personality in the video. I'm a huge Paul Frees (late actor whose voice appears in the Haunted Mansion ride) fan. I sort of played with that on my video. I guess everybody sort of liked the attitude I had in the video. They figured that was it."

What drew you to the Haunted Mansion in particular?

"I guess I like the history and all the people that were involved in making it. It was pretty much one of the last things Walt (Disney) supervised before he died, so it's kind of interesting to see something he worked on."

How often do you head to Disneyland?

"It's usually once every other year."