Actor on learning how to dance and his biggest\ncompetition<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Lie Shia Ong<\/em> You know him from his roles on \u201cPretty Little Liars,\u201d \u201cDays\nof our Lives\u201d and \u201cArmy Wives,\u201d but this fall you\u2019ll see Brant Daugherty in a\nnew kind of role: Dancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 28-year old, partnered with pro dancer Peta Murgatroyd, is one of the stars competing on Season 17 of \u201cDancing With the Stars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n MSN TV spoke with the actor about getting his first dance\nperformance under his belt, the dance he is preparing for Week 2, and who he\nthinks might be his biggest competition this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MSN TV: Did you\njust get done with rehearsals?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brant Daugherty: We did. Yeah, yeah. We\u2019re still here at the rehearsal space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How is preparation\ngoing for Monday night\u2019s dance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s going well. We\u2019re making leaps and bounds every day.\nIt\u2019s kind of stressful to learn a dance every week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What style are you\ndoing this week?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re doing the rumba this Monday. It\u2019s still in the same\nLatin family as the cha-cha, but very slow and precise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know you\u2019re\nprobably living, eating, breathing everything \u201cDancing With the Stars\u201d right\nnow. How long are you practicing every week?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We are unfortunately capped at four hours a day. I would\nideally like to go longer than that, but that\u2019s as much as we can do: Four\nhours a day, six days a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s still quite\na bit, though.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is quite a bit. It seems like a lot at first. I was a\nlittle overwhelmed at first, actually. I was like, \u2018Ohhh, we have to dance four\nhours every day?\u2019 But once you realize the pressure and the stress of the show,\nyou understand that four hours isn\u2019t that long to learn these dances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is the rumba\nharder than the dance you performed last week?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We did the cha-cha last week, and the good thing about a fast dance, which I\u2019ve learned, is if you stumble a little bit, there\u2019s a step right after it, [so] you can make it up. So, it\u2019s not the end of the world if you fumble here or there. It\u2019s not ideal, but at least you can get through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This season the\nbar seems to be raised higher right out of the gate.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I know!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you feel any\nadded pressure because some of the stars you\u2019re competing against have dancing backgrounds?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah\u2026 Elizabeth [Berkley], Christina [Milian], Corbin [Bleu], they\u2019ve all danced before. Week 1 was just daunting in of itself because it was Week 1, but I hadn\u2019t seen any other celebrities dance yet, so that was my first time watching everyone perform. They were much better than I was expecting. The level of talent really is high this season, so we have taken that into consideration and we\u2019re stepping it up a notch every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who would you say\nis your biggest competition or threat?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Right now, I\u2019m keeping my eyes on Corbin Bleu and I\u2019m keeping my eyes on Elizabeth Berkley and Amber Riley. Amber kind of came in as an underdog in this. I was expecting her to be good. I wasn\u2019t expecting her to be phenomenal, and she was phenomenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of your fans\ntweeted in questions they wanted me to ask you. We saw last week that you and\nPeta have quite the chemistry when you dance together. @daugh3rty wants to\nknow: What has it been like working with her?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n [Laughs]. Peta is an amazing teacher, and she creates this sense of ease and comfort when we\u2019re around each other. There\u2019s nothing I can\u2019t say. I\u2019m never censoring myself. I can do anything I want to do. I never feel like I have to hold back around her. Because of that comfort and that ease we have for each other, it really just makes us so close to one another. It really helps our dancing that she\u2019s fostered that atmosphere in our rehearsals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know some of the\nfans have been clamoring that maybe there will be an off-set romance between\nyou two?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n [Laughs]. First of all, it makes me really happy you didn\u2019t\nuse the word \u201cshowmance,\u201d because I hate that word. People keep asking me about\na showmance. The word showmance implies I would change my personal life because\nof a show. That\u2019s not the case. I can\u2019t speak to whether or not anything would,\nor will, or has, happened, but we get along very well, and I have a lot of fun\nseeing her every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ll leave it at\nthat. [Laughs]. @sm0lderhald3r asked, what\u2019s harder on your stress level:\nMemorizing lines for \u201cPretty Little Liars\u201d or shows you\u2019ve been on, or learning\ndances for \u201cDWTS\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hands down learning the dances has been far more\nstressful. It actually kind of highlights the difference between dancers and\nactors: Actors are used to using their words and dancers are used to using\ntheir bodies more. So, Peta memories the dances like I memorize lines. She doesn\u2019t\nhave to think about it. When I get a script and I start to work, I can generally\nread it twice and have everything memorized but only because I\u2019ve been doing it\nfor so long, and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve chosen to focus on. But, I don\u2019t know how\nto speak through dance yet. We\u2019re learning every week, but it\u2019s much more\ndifficult to learn the steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n @aheavens_angel\nwants to know if you\u2019re afraid of the so-called \u201cDWTS curse\u201d\u2014if you\u2019re scared\nof getting injured.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there a curse on our show?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, three\u2019s been\ninjuries here and there.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n [Laughs]. I wasn\u2019t aware there was a \u201ccurse.\u201d Am I afraid of getting injured? I can answer that: Absolutely, because being injured mainly means that I would’nt have the chance to continue. And for me it\u2019s not so much about winning or getting to the end, it\u2019s just staying with this. I mean, they\u2019re teaching me to dance from a very amazing professional dancer. I don\u2019t want to lose that opportunity and getting hurt would take that away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n @JacquelynAS3B wants to know: When can we expect you to take off your shirt for one of your performances?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n [Laughs]. You can expect it when the time is right. I\nrealize that\u2019s not a serious answer, but I don\u2019t have a solid answer for that.\nI can\u2019t say \u2018Week 3 or Week 4\u2019 because I don\u2019t know what dance we\u2019re preparing\nor that it would be appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know Peta has choreographed\nthat for her other dance partners in the past, so you should be prepared, I\u2019m guessing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s something we\u2019ve discussed, and we have discussed\nwhen we\u2019re going to do it, and we\u2019re not sure if the time is right yet or not. We\ndon\u2019t want to do it before everybody is ready for it. They have to figure out\nwho I am first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n @collinyar wanted me to ask you about your upcoming movie, \u201cThe Starving Games.\u201d What was it like starring in \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d spoof?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Those were some of the best scenes I\u2019ve ever filmed in my\nlife. I had some much fun working on that. I had been doing the hour-long drama\ntelevision show for a couple of years now, and to branch out into, first of\nall, a feature film and, and second of all, a comedy, was really exhilarating.\nThey let us goof off a lot and they let us play around. There\u2019s so much\nphysical comedy and humor. It was an honor to work on that movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you think the movie\nwill resonate with the die-hard \u201cHunger Games\u201d fan base?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Absolutely. I think first of all, the \u201cHunger Games\u201d fans\nare going to see things and nods to the movie that they like and people who didn\u2019t\nlike \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d are going to find things they like in the movie. It\u2019s\nnot just solely for one audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anything else you\nwant to add or a message you want to send to your fans out there?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was completely blown away by all the support and the love and the recognition we got for our Week 1 dance. I was really nervous about it. I didn\u2019t want to come away leaving a bad taste in people\u2019s mouths, and they were right there with me, and I just want to thank everybody for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDancing With the Stars\u201d airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET\/PT on ABC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Actor on learning how to dance and his biggest competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-msn-entertainment","category-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=636"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636\/revisions\/866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
MSN TV<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n