Episode Transcript
Hello, everybody.
I am Daniel Fischel, TV director, podcaster, mom of two, and a multi time answer on Jeopardy under the name of my nineteen nineties family sitcom character to Panga Lawrence.
But if you've been like millions of Americans over the past few months, then you might recognize me as a competitor on season thirty four of Dancing with the Stars, the reality competition show.
I was just recently eliminated from making it all the way to the Elite eight and along the way.
Even now that I've been ceremoniously removed, I am recording this podcast, creating a journal of sorts detailing my life changing journey from zero dance experience to some dance experience.
Even if I didn't find myself hoisting the Len Goodman mirror Ball trophy above my head and victory, I do still have this here microphone.
I've been talking with pros, former contestants, fellow season thirty four cast members, and wildly talented behind the scenes geniuses in order to further understand the worldwide phenomenon that is Dancing with the Stars, and this week I am chatting with one of the most crucial components of that machine.
During my time on the show, so many aspects of how It's run is both fascinating and basically unbelievable.
And as a part of the Celebrated Costumes division, she helps run a team that makes everyone dancing look like a million bucks, even when their footwork taps out around a few thousand.
Speaker 2And keep in.
Speaker 1Mind she is in charge of creating new costumes week after week for at one point over a dozen different couples, sometimes in theme, sometimes shinier than a Christmas tree, sometimes numerous looks per show, all in less than The pressure is immense, and yet every episode is filled with not only beautiful outfits, but choice is made with care and elegance.
If you have only a few hours and need a donkey costume that is both TV ready and danceable, well, thankfully for allan, there's only one team on TV who can pull something like that off.
You can't step in the ballroom without looking the part, which is why this week I am absolutely honored to be speaking with a true backstage legend of the show, someone who has proven to accomplish the impossible week after week, year after year.
It's Emmy nominated costumer Daniella Schwentner.
Speaker 2Daniella hold out, Hi, Hi, Hi technology working.
Speaker 1No, you the fabulous, you were here, You're ready, you know exactly how to work the camera.
You look gorgeous as per usual.
Speaker 2I don't know about that.
It's been a rough day to day, has it?
You know this room?
Bells?
Speaker 1I do?
Speaker 2I know that room.
Speaker 1I've stood there in many a hamstring brace yes in Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
I know just how grueling your schedule is as you approach the semifinals, but I would like the audience to understand this a little bit.
How many costumes are you making for just this week with the twentieth anniversary of the show taking place Tuesday night.
Speaker 2Well, you know, this is a mix now of things that we restructure, things that we shop, things that we make.
So custom make is probably I don't I really don't know.
It's it's double dances.
So with seven couples, I think we are right now, so fourteen custom make from scratch, But then a lot of things that just need to be restructured, you know, and that's sometimes just as much work as making it from you know, scratch, because our stuff has rhinestones.
Every alteration they have to peel of rhinestones off, you know, scripts have to be changed.
So it's it's still a pretty big big.
Speaker 1It's a big undertaking even if you buy something.
Speaker 2Yeah, in the end, I think now we're looking at over two hundred costumes, you know, easily for just one week, you know, oh my gosh.
Yeah, because we just had a show which unfortunately you left us.
I know, I left you, guys.
I was so sad, I know, and then the Christmas Special and now the twentieth where we have so many returning people.
So it's it's definitely been a week.
Speaker 1But yeah, we roll with it, and you and you somehow find found time to say, how about this Sunday at three pm?
I can fit in a podcast.
Maybe you have a you maybe you enjoy the pain.
Speaker 2Yeah, I guess.
So, yeah, this worked out kind of.
Okay, we have a dress rehearsal in an hour, so I think, okay, half hour, I can sneak away.
Speaker 1Perfect have my radio on so in case some emergency emergency happens.
But okay, I want to start at the very beginning.
Were you a kid who was making dresses for your dolls?
When did you start to have an eye for fashion.
Speaker 2I was more the kid who told her grandmother but all a little bit.
I didn't necessarily all make them myself.
But my grandma was a seamstress, and so I did grow up with sewing and all.
But I always was a little bit like my ideas were a little bigger than what I could sew myself.
So I very early on had people help me with that process because I'm more the idea person.
I draw it, you know, as you know, I find the fabriak, I figure out with you guys the rope map of what we're doing, and then I have we have a fantastic team here, you know if fought who cuts everything and puts it together for me in the workroom, and then the ladies who you know helped put it together and rhinestone and so it's a big it's a big group of people who help with this here.
Speaker 1You know, Yes, and your relationship and friendship with a thought is one of my most favorite memories and experiences of my time on Dancing with the Stars.
The way you two work together with so much respect and admiration for one another and the exchange of ideas.
I just love both you ladies so much.
Okay, So I love that you are basically the big idea person and you don't so much consider yourself to be the technician, the actual person able to make your dream come true.
Although you do know how to sew, but that's not what you don't spend your time doing that so much anymore.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think, you know, I think my career always took me into the design area, and then there were people who were just you know, you have to do something over and over to be really good at it, you know.
I mean, yes, there's a lot of people who can do things, but to be really good, you have to do it a lot.
And I have a team that is really good.
So and there's also on a show like this, no time, you know, between all the meetings we have to do in the fabric shopping in the fittings and and you know, the sketches and talking to everybody about the sketches.
You know, there's not enough hours in the day for one person to do everything, you know, So we I mean, obviously there's you know, Steven leads the boys, I lead the girls, and and we you know, then you have to delegate.
There's fantastic shoemakers that help us out.
There's a man's tailor, there's women's.
You know, there's so many difficult hands on deck, all hands, a lot of hands on every hand is needed.
Speaker 1You know, yes, how did this become a career for you?
Did you go to school for.
Speaker 2I did that?
I did know.
I always wanted to be in fashion, and I always was, you know, drawn to that.
I went to school for it.
I got a fashion design and Merchandising degree, which really means not that much when you get in the real world.
But I actually started as a stylist, and you know, one day I decided I wanted to know more than just purchasing clothes, and you know, I wanted to actually know how to create them.
And I was lucky I ended up on shows that allowed that to learn that.
And then I landed here with with no dance experience whatsoever.
You know, I was like, I didn't know a possible from a chart show and I started here.
I was like, what's that?
You know, I'm sure you learned the dance has taught a lot, and I learned a lot, and you know, so it was an interesting journey to be here where I am now.
Speaker 1And you actually started on scripted shows.
Right, it was one of your first shows, Charmed, which is a pretty costume heavy show.
Speaker 2Yes, that was my first show that I designed.
Towards the end, I took it over from another design.
Eventually I supervised and then I designed it.
Yeah.
It was, you know, another one where I really got to learn how to you know, make a fantasy costume, things that aren't just out there, you know, just gone to shop a banjee or you know whatever crazy demon our producers back then came up with.
So yeah, So that was that.
Speaker 1And so you joined Dancing with the Stars in two thousand and nine.
How did this opportunity come about to you?
Speaker 2You know?
It was actually funny enough.
I think it was partially s Steven because Stephen was an intern on Charmed with me.
And then I left town for New Mexico and did a show there for three and a half years, and then I came back and I was like, I need a job, and he was like, well, it's not a design job.
I actually started as a key on this show, which was not I had been designing for I don't know how many years, probably eight years at that point, but I had lost sort of my contacts here in town, and everybody was telling me I was committing career suicide because you don't go backwards in Hollywood.
And I was like, well, but I learned something, and you know, learning something is always better than sitting at home waiting for a phone call.
Yes, so I ended up joining this team, and I don't know, it happened that they needed a designer for the Chooster Show and you're of us, and they're like, you're a designer, design it, and then eventually I became, you know, it became part of the girls designing the whole thing.
Speaker 1I love that.
I love that, you know, because sometimes it is you'll get advice from people and you think, oh, am I doing the wrong thing, but your instincts told you no, and also your desire to work and to learn something, and you thought, okay, worst case scenario, I go and work on a show and it's it's not up to my standard of what I have been doing for the last eight years, but I'm going to learn something new.
I'm going to enjoy it, and then look what happens.
Like that's such a good lesson for people to trust your instincts sometimes, you know, I think.
Speaker 2So because I really look back on that decision, and it was I really never think that way, you know, But listening to others, you're like, is this really bad if I do this?
You know, people think I go really backwards, But for me, it was like I'm always intrigued when I learned something new, and this was not a jeans and T shirt show, you know, I was like, obviously something, if nothing else, just how to rhinestone, which I did back then, I'm of rhinestoning, and yeah, I think that's the thing, you know, And now looking back, I mean eighteen years on the show, I'm like, my life would have gone a totally different direction if I hadn't taken the.
Speaker 1Show right exactly, life changing moment for you right there, real fork in the road.
Okay, I wanted to speaking of the rhinestoning, I have seen some of the rhinestoning taking place outside.
I think, is it really every individual hand place and glued rhinestone?
Speaker 2Yes, every single one is placed and yeah by hand.
Speaker 1Yeah, that is must be the most time consuming work.
Speaker 2Well, we have gotten pretty good at it.
You know, we have a system down.
We use glues ve enges in our girls.
So again, as something you do a lot, you get very good and fast ed, you know so.
But yeah, obviously that's a big element of the show, which is why we have to push the girls through early.
As you know, when you come for your first fitting, things don't look all that great yet they're just about to get a shell on you.
To get a you know, make sure we have a guideline because we need at the back end so much time to write stone it so it does look beautiful, you know.
That is what takes our costumes then out of like the ordinary into the spectacular.
You know, it's the stones.
Speaker 1So speaking of that that first fitting, let's go through a typical week for you, and I know the week's change, especially as you get later into the season and now there become you know, group dances and two dances and three dances.
Let's start kind of at the beginning of a season.
What does a week look like for you?
At the very beginning?
How does how does the week start?
You get the idea for the theme?
Speaker 2Well, you know, we we obviously we are in team with the producers.
I mean, there is a creative normally given to us that kind of explains what the story should be, what lighting we're doing, what maybe what story we want to convey, you know, in the first in the beginning, you know, normally we want to introduce our talent, you know, the new celebrities that come on.
If they I mean, if they're a sports person, we want to not given not to the sport therein for example, or you know for everybody, or you had, like eventually on the show a number where it was a not to your show, and so you know, so every week has those elements, and then you do the research or you talk to you know, you and your partner, and there's there's so much dialogue involved until we get to a costume because we you know, there's the music, there's a story we want to tell, there's what producers want it to look like.
Then we need to think for the women, what skirts right for you?
What can you do and not do in that?
What is your choreography?
Then it's normally for me, a sketch you know that I show you and we look at a fabric that I think is right for what we talked about, and then it goes through the motions, it gets cut, it gets put together, it gets fit for the first time.
Then after the first time, it goes back it gets you know, fine tuned to the point where we start winstoning it and then we fit it again then and dances.
Speaker 1And you are always working on more than one week at a time, because that first sketch and meeting happens at least one full week before the week you're talking about.
But plus, when you're in production, you're actually doing the fittings for the current outfit that you're wearing.
So there's never a time where you're not thinking about multiple costumes for every single celebrity.
Speaker 2Yes, for every girl dance and every female celebrity.
That that's true, and Dad was Dad.
We're kind of used to.
What was the challenge this time was we had this Christmas special also, so it was times when we had three shows in our heads, and you know that it gets a little confusing at times.
You're like, but show, what are you talking about?
What show are you talking about right now?
Oh wow?
Speaker 1And you of course obviously know all the materials that make those costumes also danceable, because we're also limited by the fact that we have to be able to move.
And so you know, thankfully you've been doing this long enough that everything's made in a way that even though you are very sucked in.
You can still dance in it, you can still breathe in it.
There's usually room for a mic pack, which is everyone's favorite conversation, where's the mic pack going?
Fun little tidbit for our listeners.
Most of the time, the pack itself is in your near your butt, very very very close to your your butt, and then occasionally, for whatever reason, it can't be near your butt, it is in your breast, like in your bra area, which is not everyone's favorite spot.
Although I actually preferred it to the one in my butt.
I did not like the butt.
Speaker 2Back like you like, what's the least offensive place exactly.
Speaker 1So Also, I know this is not a very sexy topic, but networks don't love spending tons of money, even on a massive hit show like Dancing with the Stars, So you still have to make all of this costuming for all of these people happen within a budget, right, Yes, But I.
Speaker 2Have to say that's been really good on the show for okay, because I think everybody understands that besides the dance and the dancer, the only other thing you really see full on all the time is the costume.
And also it really does help the dance, so much, you know, and when you have a beautiful flowing walt skirt versus you know, I mean, we really do spend on the good fabric there and the stes and rather than you know, our producers are very good that way.
They understand that we really do need to make it look beautiful, you know, because a big part of the beauty is how it moves and how it fits and how it looks on you guys.
You know that's great good.
I'm so glad.
Speaker 1I'm so glad they're not waving a check book over your head, going you can't do this.
I will say I never felt that way in any of in any of the fittings.
I never felt like there was something we wanted or asked for and the response was anything other than yes, we can do that.
Speaking of which I had to give you credit on my on my podcast.
I know you heard it a while back.
There was when we did for the Cha Cha I we originally Daniella wanted to have straps on the dress and she wanted it to feel feel different than my promo hot pink dress that I had worn.
And I loved my promo dress so much, and it was a halter and so I reached out to Danielle and I was like, can we do a halter?
I just felt like that was so comfortable and I loved the way it looked, and she was like, yes, we can do that, and she told me her reasons why she wanted to do the straps, and I was like, I think I still want to do a halter.
She said okay, And then the night of the show, I put that dress on and it weighed so many rhinestone pounds and it just was completely hanging on me and we all watched it during dress rehearsal and I immediately took it off and said I was wrong.
I was wrong, Danielle, I apologize.
I need to have straps put on this.
And within an hour I had a dress that had the straps that Daniella originally wanted on the dress, and it fit and worked so much better.
So never never doubt you.
You You've been doing this a very long time.
You know what you're doing.
Uh, And I just I wanted to apologize again for thinking I knew better.
Speaker 2Oh please, though you didn't calculate in that that dress weigh seven thousand more pounds than the Troma dressed because I was all beaded fringe, and those are our heaviest dresses.
And especially when you move, you know, and you start moving with beaded fringe, it just pulls poles and poles and poles.
Yes, that is true.
That was an easy fix.
And you know the I mean, we do try to make everybody.
You know, if somebody really loves something, I will always give it a try until you can see maybe that it doesn't work.
Then we fix it, and then you fix it.
Speaker 1Then you go, okay, I already had those straps made up, Danielle, I was ready to go.
Do you look forward to the theme weeks every week?
Does the having a theme help you with creativity or does it sometimes feel a bit like a burden?
Speaker 2Yes?
And no exactly.
I mean, I think theme weeks are good sometimes because they give us all a roadmap.
There's not so much like, oh, we could do this or that or the other.
You know, it's where you when you when you design for an individual dancer, because there's so many options you could go with, you know, so the the theme weeks definitely limit that down.
But I personally I am not a fan of copying anything, you know, so that's why sometimes I don't love that when I have to copy with another designer, design doesn't feel like as fun to me, you know, And especially when it's like like Disney, where it's really supposed to be correct, you know, like look like that character, so you're copying pretty exact.
That is that has its other child challenges.
You know.
It's kind of like you look at a color for ten times a day and you're like, is it really to write blue?
Is really to write blue?
Is it a little shade?
Darker, lighter than you know?
So that has that challenge.
But I mean both, you know, the show has both and both we you just roll roll with that, with all of it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I want to talk to you a little bit about Prince Week because I was very excited that if I made it to Prince Week, we were doing bat Dance we were going to do and I was so excited about it because in the video for bat Dance, Prince is wearing a purple joker suit, and I just knew I was going to be able to hand over that inspiration to you and that you were going to come up with something incredible for that week.
So what are you what aspects of Prince Week in particular, are you looking forward to what inspiration are you taking?
Speaker 2Well, you know, it was he also had such a strong looked as like looks of we just really associate with with him, so we're trying to, of course take an essence from all of that.
So it's fun because it's it's taking a very creative personality and persons and in trying to you know, put a spin on it for dance room stars, which is always just an aspect of that.
So you take an element, you know.
So that's fun because there's so many elements.
You know, sometimes when we have a theme week or an artist that's a little bit more limited.
But I think we have no limitations there really because there were so many different cool looks that totally can use as inspiration and build you know, build off of.
So I think that's the best part about it is that we don't land in just one color theme or you know how we do sometimes with certain theme weeks, like with Wicked we ended up in all green pretty much, right, I don't think, So this is a lot more you know, there's a lot more versatility in the looks that we can emulate there or take as a base for inspiration.
Speaker 1Now every year there are different theme weeks added, and they change and everything, but one thing that pretty much remains constant is Halloween Week.
What is your feeling on Halloween Week?
Do you love it?
Do you feel like you have a lot of creativity that week?
Speaker 2Yeah?
I do.
I mean again a little bit after eighteen years, you've done a lot for looks, you know, which is on one hand grade because we can build off those again.
You know, like that's something that I feel like I'm learning to do now, is how can it take something I've done already and modified into something that it's new and which helps a lot because then you don't have to you know, you don't have to start so much from scratch, but you can use your time to elaborate on something like you know, our when we started our skeletons a little more basic.
Now they are real bondes and different.
You again, the learning process.
You know, I love Halloween because it's you know, it's it's fun and the looks are like a little bit easy for us.
Again when you have like something given me know what a skeleton looks like?
We know what you know what those characters normally need to be whereas you know, sometimes the hardest is something where you're completely on your own with a look.
Okay, I just want a sexy Argentine tango, but that can be a million things, you know, Like then I need to really think, who are you?
What is your body?
What do you like on yourself?
What have I learned about you?
Or the last few weeks of knowing you?
You know, so I will maybe give you a halta like I did in contempores, because I know that dress will work that way, so you know, you just but I feel I do more thinking when it's something original, you know, when it's something that somebody doesn't tell me, Oh it has to look like like this Disney character or like this Halloween character or something.
You know.
I feel like we're more creative when we don't have those guidelines.
Speaker 1And so then what does happen to these beautiful costumes, these one of a kind costumes when the season is over?
Where do they go?
Where do ballroom costumes go to rest?
Speaker 2They go into a storage area which is rather large, and we keep most of it, I mean, because as I said, you know, it's it's as we learn how to build on things that exist, you know, with all these teen dances group dances, we can bring things back and modify them and you know, give them a new life rather than it would be a shame.
These costumes are so time consuming, so expensive to make, it would be horrible to just get rid of them.
So of course we all have you know, another life.
We have a dance and the stars tour, they go on that, and then obviously we use things because it's the only way to make the show happen, is you know, at least we use a fully stone bodies and put a different scord on it.
Speaker 1Or some of course, have you ever had an idea for a theme on the show, maybe something they haven't done yet, but as a costumer you would just die to work on.
Speaker 2No, I actually haven't think you Spoto like we should do maybe a fashion designer inspired, you know now like Chanel and like there's you know, har money and that's a great idea, Utia.
I mean, obviously there would be.
It would be very fun to you know, go into these different looks of these designers and make those like something else since we're already looking allotted fashion for the show, you know, because that's the that's the fun part.
We have kind of married fashion with dance more and more.
M So it'd be fun to maybe look into the you know, into the different fashion houses that maybe take inspiration from what their signature looks are.
Speaker 1Oh, that's such a great idea.
Speaker 2I love that.
Speaker 1Is there one costume in particular that you look back on and you think, I cannot believe we pulled that off?
Speaker 2No, there's many and many every week.
I feel that sometimes, but I honestly not even kidding.
No, I think these years now are better.
There were many years when I had to learn about you know, you made mistakes and things didn't work and you know that stuff.
I feel like there were definitely times when fixing something that I just had to learn that that doesn't work for dance, or that is not as good as I thought in my head it would be.
I think that were more the times where we scrambled.
Now, I feel we know more.
You know, we won't do certain things anymore because you know they'll get us in trouble.
Speaker 1Yeah.
While researching I was looking at some of the costumes over your years on the show, and one of my favorites was Lindsay Sterling and Mark Ballast for their quick step dressed as butterflies.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, that heard one.
Speaker 1Dress was so beautiful.
Do you have any favorites that come to mind right away when you think of favorite costumes?
Speaker 2Well, there were there were some that stand out just because they were kind of first on the show.
You know we did we did a dress actually for Sadie robertson Long time back that we said it was all rhinestones into a long skirt.
So it was we we counted was over twenty five thousand stones.
Speaker 1Oh my oh god.
Speaker 2We were like, that's probably our most rhinestone dress ever, which I think we have surpassed at this point, but that stood out.
I mean, I feel like the first Flamenco pass.
So we did stand out.
You know, every time you did we did something new that we hadn't done before.
That stands out in my mind a little bit because we had to learn how to how does that get put together?
That's more thoughts doing, but also what fabric do we use for that?
You know, once you have done it, you know all that worked or it didn't work, and next time I won't do that anymore.
The first time you do any outfit is always you know, you're like you have to learn something about it.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Speaker 1The Lend Goodman tribute in twenty twenty three was also such a tall task for you, and you made an absolutely beautiful moment with the costuming.
What was that assignment like for you?
Speaker 2Well, you know, truthfully, that wasn't that hard because it was it was a traditional ballroom number, you know, which is something we did for a long time on the show, and then we stopped doing it for a little bit.
So if it was fun to bring that back out, and as I said, we had bases that we could you know, add feathers to and just dress up.
So it's actually a little easier than people think it was.
You know, it looked brand and beautiful, but because we were able to use existing things and just stress them up and make them more spectacular, it was actually, you know, it was almost better than starting from scratch with that because it looked much richer once you added feathers and more stones, and you know, you elaborated on address that existed.
It just took that into that world that made it so special.
I think.
Speaker 1So this Tuesday night, you have been handed another important task to celebrate twenty years of Dancing with the Stars.
This podcast is going to be released after the show, so you can feel free to spoil things.
It won't air until after.
Talk about what everyone saw on what was a very special night.
How do you approach something so bad like the twentieth anniversary of Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 2Well, I think, you know, we have people come back from the past, which is really great.
I think again, it's more volume.
Derek is choreographing that opening, So I work with Derek a lot, so I kind of know what he likes, you know, overall, and I think it took just one zoom to kind of figure out the direction because we had to jump on it really fast because we had to make like, I don't know, twelve feather skirts, and you know, it was things that we couldn't even handle out of our department here.
It had to go to other places.
So then I try to find ways where somebody can follow a pattern, you know, rather than having to develop something.
So it worked out actually kind of well too for us, because we had something here that I knew would work, and then we just copied that in another workroom.
And then it's just you know, going through the motions and getting it, making some and pulling some and you know, it's it's what we do.
It's it wasn't necessarily more work than other other weeks.
Maybe more because it's more bodies a little bit, but overall again, I mean for us, every week has been right, every week thing like that.
So we're just a lot of bodies to dress that is, you know.
Then it becomes actually more of a logistical problem too, because they all have you all have to rehearse and when do we fit it?
You know, when do we get people so we can put things on their bodies so we can keep moving.
That I think is the highest challenge when there's so much going on that everybody's so busy they can't come see us.
And the further we push it close to you know, going life, the less time we have to fix it, make it, change it, whatever it needs for it to be good, you know.
So that's the biggest stress.
I feel that was the stress of this week to get the Christmas special organized thing, get the twenty is also at the same time organized and having all this parallel going and trying to fit it and see when somebody was available, like I'm throwing U s onn you right now.
Yeah, it wasn't even full outfits anymore.
It was like this top and then for another time.
Because it all was in the morek summer, I'm like, Okay, this is how we're doing it this week.
This week is going to be piece by piece.
Speaker 1Yeah wow, you mentioned being you know, knowing Derek pretty well and working closely with Derek.
Speaker 2Are there certain.
Speaker 1Pros that are very hands on about the costumes both for them and their partner and others who are a little more like, you're the expert, do whatever you want?
And if so, who are some of the more involved partners.
Speaker 2Well, I think it's definitely Derek Mark Val very involved, you know.
Then others are more like, you know, like day La at asthmo duo thing.
It depends, though, I think it's I try to have a dialogue with everybody before, you know.
I'd never like to do a costume for a celebrity women, for example, without checking with the pro boy what's right for their dance because there's so many skirtstars.
I mean for the girls, the biggest part is the skirt style.
Am I doing the right thing for your choreography, for your story, for what you want to express?
If I give you a soft flow, if skirt and you want edgy, and yeah, then we're not.
Like, it's not going to work.
And I need to know that, you know, so I need to talk to the pro boys normally all of them to some degree, to understand what are you doing, what's right for your dance, what's right And then I hope a lot of them trust me now that I know what's right for their celebrity, for their body, for you know that we're trying to make them understand.
You know, we're working with a person and they have to like it on themselves, and they have to look good in it, and they're body has to look good in it, so you know, it's a lot.
Speaker 1Of moving parts.
Finally, the show has somehow found a whole new audience and here we are in the middle of a very unexpected renaissance for Dancing with the Stars.
As someone who has been there and seen it all firsthand, why do you think Dancing with the Stars has been able to speak to so many generations?
Speaker 2Well, I think it's you know, first of all, it's just really beautiful to the dancing music and you know, the costume and everything.
It is a little bit of a fantasy world and most people do like dance and music together.
I think it's also we had, of course a cast that came on lately that is heavily influencing the younger generations, you know, so that brought a lot of people I see, And I just think the reality of it all, that this is a true reality show.
You can't fake it.
You can't if you're not good at dancing, or if you don't put in the time to get good at it, and if you don't, if the audience can't tell that you put in the time to learn, and like, look at your journey.
You know, there's so much people have to learn and invest of time and energy to be good at this show and good at a dance and look good and have a good performance.
So I think people like to see that because it is real.
That's not something you can just show up for and do.
You have to actually really be involved and do all the steps to get good at it.
And I think people like that they see that, and it keeps it fresh and it keeps it interesting, and you see people's journey and they have a good week and a bad week, and it's just it's the realness of it all.
I think that really draws people in.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think you're right.
I mean being well to see where someone starts on day one and the attitude or the energy that they have on day one versus by week seven or week eight, and you see now how far they've come in the relationship with their pro and how that's developed.
And yeah, it is like you, it's impossible to not get sucked into the real story of everyone who's on the show, and obviously you are such an enormous part of that of showcasing us in all the most beautiful, fantastic light.
And so from the bottom of my heart, just thank you so much for the time we got to spend together and all the wonderful work that you did for me.
In particular, I'm just so grateful.
And I loved every single one of my costumes.
You already know that.
I've already talked to you about how I managed to have all those in my closet.
So we will talk about that more when the season is over.
I'm not going to bother you with it before then.
Danielle, thank you so much for being here with me.
Speaker 2Thank you for having me law Bye Bye.
Speaker 1Danielle with the Stars Produced and hosted by Danielle Fischell Executive Producers Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer, editor and engineer Tara Sudebosch.
Theme song by Justin Siegel.
Follow us on Instagram at Danielle with Stars and vote for me
