Chrisie Morris, a rising senior at Cal State University Long Beach, has had a longtime dream of conquering the animation industry, and made a major step in that direction with an internship at DreamWorks Animation. The studio known for hits like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda tabbed Morris to work on the latter, a spinoff series named Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight, with Morris landing the role with help from Santa Monica-based Ready to Succeed LA.
Ready to Succeed (RTS), the organization dedicated to assisting foster youth and first-generation college students unlock their potential, matched former foster youth Morris with a dedicated career advisor and interview coach to prepare her for the colorful world of DreamWorks.
“I talked with them and just expressed my desire to really be in the entertainment industry, and then that’s where we worked together and they taught me how to talk about my previous work experience [and] highlight my skills,” Morris said. “I did a ton of mock interviews to prepare for the DreamWorks internship.

Credit: Courtesy Photo
Ready to Succeed co-founders Romi Lassally and Patrick McCabe both came from the entertainment world, and have worked diligently to secure internship programs at heavy-hitters like Disney, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, HBO, Warner Brothers and DreamWorks. The company also recently forged a partnership with AEG Worldwide, a global leader in sports, music and events.
“Given that the entertainment industry is one of the biggest employers in LA, [it] made sense that we would focus there both for our creative scholars and also for the non-creatives, since again, they’re one of the biggest [sources of] employment and internship opportunities in the area,” Ready to Succeed Director of Opportunities and Volunteers Lucy Cherkasets said.
DreamWorks roles for RTS scholars range from animation-related spots to positions in human relations. Morris expressed her desire for the creative space, but needed some help calming her nerves after receiving the internship.
“I thought it was gonna be like the movies where everything’s really dark and scary and you’re running around [getting] coffee,” Morris said. “And then it turns out, it’s not like the movies, so I had a really fun and great experience.”
Starting her internship in the spring of 2023, Morris became the only intern that season to work on two productions, the aforementioned Dragon Knight as well as another animated project, Gabby’s Dollhouse. Her roles included managing daily episodic shot shipments from external partner studios, taking notes during creative meetings, updating internal files and finding information for other team members.
Morris took on a larger project as well, tasked with having to get asset designs cleared with DreamWorks’ legal department.
“I was expecting to maybe not get to do as much [hands-on] work, but DreamWorks has a really great learning structure where they allow you to be really immersed in what you do,” Morris added.
After a successful spring session, DreamWorks called Morris back for a second 10-week internship, this time focused on the adventure-horror-comedy mashup show Curses! Cherkasets noted that extensions after a first internship is “very rare” and “the biggest compliment and acknowledgment for the scholar.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever said to her yes, you can, and she was already so highly skilled and talented, and it just took making the connection,” Cherkasets said. “She did the rest of the work.”
Through her two sessions, Morris said she learned a bevy of skills needed for her continued exploits in the industry, including time management handling “multiple, high-priority tasks” at the same time, which is a key attribute working in productions with “a lot of moving parts.” She also picked up tricks of the trade from studio employees during coffee chats, saying that they “loved talking to the interns.”
“The main thing that I learned was [that] people just want to have real conversations,” Morris said. [It’s] just really nice to just talk to people who are nice, and just nice to be around, and so that made it really fun to naturally talk to people and hear about their story, because that helps me learn.”
The Ready to Succeed team kept up the chats as well, continuing to provide advice on how to handle each crucial situation. A DreamWorks representative told the Daily Press that while the “partnership with RTS is relatively young, our hope is to deepen [our] partnership to convert interns coming from RTS into employees.”
“RTS plays a huge role in preparing scholars for internships because you can’t just show up, you have to show up with support … how do you show up? How do you network? How do you meet people? … I think both scholars and employers find [those answers] really valuable,” Cherkasets said.
Morris was thankful for the advice, and has some of her own for other RTS scholars following her path, saying she now sees “the ladder of how to get” to a prominent spot in the industry.
“I would tell [scholars] to always prepare, always remain prepared for potential opportunities awaiting you, because you can’t control when an opportunity will come by, but you can control whether or not you’re prepared to take it once it does show up … if you want to help yourself and you really strive, other people will see that and want to support you,” Morris said.