As a child, Chasez was extremely shy, but when a friend bet him $20 to enter a talent show, he won the contest and soon realized he had a knack for performing and that he really enjoyed singing. In 1989, his mother Karen Chasez noticed a small ad in the Washington Post announcing auditions for Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club and encouraged Chasez to try out. He chose to audition, selecting the song "Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx. Chasez was soon cast as a performer in the fourth season and stayed until the show's cancellation in 1996. Since there was another Mouseketeer named Joshua, Chasez went by his first and last initials, "JC", to avoid confusion. It was during his time as a Mouseketeer that Chasez befriended Future bandmate Justin Timberlake, along with other Future entertainers including Britney Spears, Ryan Gosling, Tony Lucca, Keri Russell, and Christina Aguilera.