Alyson Hannigan is having a lot of fun dancing with the stars!
The 49-year-old actress made it through the first two weeks of the reality competition, dancing alongside her professional partner Sasha Farber.
In the first week, Alyson and Sasha landed toward the bottom of the leaderboard with their salsa, but they came back “night and day,” as judge Derek Hough said, in the second week with their tango!
We caught up with Alyson ahead of the upcoming “Motown Night,” where she will perform the Foxtrot to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. We get the scoop on how her family has supported her in the program and why she decided to join. DWTSovercoming the challenges of not being a dancer and more.
Read on for our exclusive interview…
Just Jared: Congratulations on making it to another week. dancing with the stars!Alyson Hannigan: Thank you. I am very, very happy and relieved.
JJ: You said at the beginning of the season that you’re not a dancer at all. What made you want to accept a challenge like this? AH: That’s a good question. Basically, my daughters are 14 and 11 and as parents we definitely encourage them to try things that are outside their comfort zone. Like going out for the volleyball team, going out for the swim team. You know, challenge yourself, just because you don’t know if you’re good at it or not, that shouldn’t stop you. And I realized that, well, now they’re old enough to know that I’m a hypocrite if I don’t do it myself, but I’m preaching to them that they have to do it. So I thought, okay, you know what? I’m going to do it. I do it mainly because it terrifies me and honestly, it’s been the best thing I said yes to. It’s been so rewarding in so many ways that I wasn’t even aware of it and I just love it so much and I don’t want it to end.
I was in the first few weeks of rehearsal and I had this big feeling of, oh, when this is over, I’m going to be so sad. You know, I hope it lasts, you know, I’ve said I don’t have a destination, but I’m really enjoying this journey and I don’t want it to end, you know. And the ups and downs, the blood, the sweat, the tears and everything before, I love every second of it.
JJ: What does your family think about you doing the show? AH: They support you a lot. It truly has been a wonderful gift to all of us. They are so cool. They try to help me with the framework and all the things. Mostly it becomes us just fooling around and my husband [Alexis Denisof] acting like he turned his back, but he’s been great. They have decorated the house with disco balls and everything else after my first day of dancing, with congratulations, they support me a lot. It’s really charming. My daughter wants to miss a volleyball game so she can go to the taping. She is so sweet.
JJ: Since you were at the end in the first week, how did you overcome that hurdle and come back with a “day and night” comeback for this week? AH: I think what I really did was learn a better way to learn. It was actually the day after the first show and my husband got up early, which he doesn’t like. He always gets me up before the kids so I can have my coffee and right before the kids wake up and start lunches and stuff. So he came over and we had an amazing conversation, going over things. What made me realize was that I need to translate the language of the dancer into the language of the actor in order to learn faster and better. That opened this door for me and I realized that I basically had to write everything down, which I had heard Charli D’Amelio say she did. I thought, that’s a really good idea. So I basically wrote down every step and count and every note I caught to dance like, don’t jump here. This is one small step, shoulders down, everything. It was just ridiculous. But that became my script and then I just memorized it so that if I lost count at the dance, it didn’t matter because I knew the dance. I think that was kind of a turning point for me and now I’m doing it this week. And I also watched tons of videos, so, you know, there’s a lot of explanations that Sasha can try to give. Sometimes I just have to see what she’s talking about. And the combination of those two things was a big thing for me, and now I have a plan. Before I thought about the first week, I was like, I just hope I can figure this all out, and I was like flying by the seat of my pants and I forgot the steps and you know, just, and the adrenaline and all the stuff. And then I realized, okay, I have to be a lot more prepared. And I have to do a lot more homework than most people. Because I’m starting with a significant deficit, I have to work very hard. That’s the only thing I can control. You know, it doesn’t come naturally to me, so all I can do is work really hard.
JJ: How does Sasha help encourage you to keep going when you’re feeling down about not accomplishing certain steps or simply completing the learning process? AH: Yeah, I mean it’s very good. He’s very good at trying to, you know, build my trust. Like yesterday, I went back down to zero again. I’m just frustrated and because you know, it’s making dumb mistakes over and over again, but, you know, he just, I don’t know. He just has a way of never making me feel like he wants to leave me, which I’m sure he probably does. But, you know, having him as a partner is very rewarding because he has so much energy and he never gives up on me, so I won’t give up, and just, it’s been wonderful. Even when he steps on my feet, which he’s been doing, but apparently it’s my fault.
JJ: Between the first and second week, it seems like you’ve become more confident with yourself on the dance floor. What has been your biggest motivator working week to week? Has the score been, do the judges comment? AH: Yeah, well, I definitely took his advice, and I really had it in my head, and then, you know, I really wanted to show that I’m working hard. . I really enjoy this and I just want to continue as long as I can, and yeah, I guess since it doesn’t come naturally, I’ll just do extra homework and try to get there or get where I can. go, you know. I don’t compete with other people, I compete with myself to be better every week.
JJ: What has been your biggest challenge regarding your Foxtrot for this week’s Motown Night? AH: I think the biggest challenge so far has been the footwork. I mean, today was a good day. I think I’m learning what the process is like, because it’s already the third week. So I think, oh, okay, I see the similarities in how it plays out, you know, when at first you’re like, oh my God, I just don’t know what you’re talking about, how am I going to learn this? But then, like today, we were able to execute the whole dance and yeah, I made a lot of mistakes, but instead of the first week where I was making those mistakes and just being like, oh no, I’m never going to do that. I’m going to get this. At least now I know something like, “Oh no, I’ve been here before and I can understand this.” So it’s kind of a nice freedom, don’t stress yourself out thinking you keep making the same mistakes over and over again because you can get there. So, performing the dance all the time, from start to finish, is a big relief in a way because then it’s like, okay, now I know the dance, I’m working on all the details. the dance. To make sure my steps are smaller here and make sure, you know, that my shoulders are here and just all the fine adjustments because when we’re in the, there’s kind of a big map of, okay, this is all your dancing. , but then we have to analyze each section, okay, so we’ll work on this piece over and over again. So, I always call it like dissection and when we’re in dissection, I think, oh, it’s very frustrating for me because, you know. But when we get to something like that, okay, well, we have the complete map and we can do it and then start fine-tuning it, that’s my happy place because I feel like that’s progress and we’re getting closer to it being good. .
JJ: How do you prepare before going on stage for the live show? AH: That’s a good question. I do a little stretching. I really write it all down or at least I did the second week and I’m going to do it today. But I write everything down, including all the similar notes, the little things I keep doing over and over again. And I write all that and then I reread it. So there’s my script. And now I’ve reread the script and memorized it. And I also visualize when I write that, like, I made a map of the ballroom and I think, the judges are here, the cameras here, the […] is here, and the audience is here and the stairs are here. And so I do it, it’s like a treasure hunt map where I like dots, dots, dots. Last week was like kickball switch, x, kickball switch, pivot, like all the things on the map. And so just rereading it once really gets me. Excellent.
And then if I could figure out how to get each person to lend me their phone at like five o’clock so I could text my name to the number, then I’d be golden. If I could figure that out, I probably wouldn’t have to work so hard on my dance homework. But that’s probably not as rewarding.
Be sure to tune in to watch Alyson Hannigan compete in week three, Motown Night, of dancing with the stars, with Sasha Farber. The show airs at 8pm ET/PT on ABC and Disney+!
To vote for them, you can text “Alyson” to 21523 up to ten times, AND you can go to DWTSvote.abc.com to cast your votes that way. Voting is only open during the show’s East Coast broadcast, starting at 8 pm ET and is open until the last commercial break!
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn