How does the Lifetime Wish Distinguished Director works if i have celebrity disabled?

I would say no since a certain Celebrity level is required to advance. My female sim is currently in the Actor branch, lvl 9 and I need 5 stars for Lvl 10. But since it's always been enabled for me, I'm not 100% sure.

As for the Celebrity system being too easy, I downloaded a mod that makes it harder, you can even choose how hard you want it to be. It's called "Harder Celebrity Difficulty" on MTS.