So when we left Vegas and went back on the tour bus I was sitting with Brian Fortuna, who was in the dancing cast of the main show, and we were talking to one of the producers from the tour. He was a British producer who had been sent over from the UK show, Strictly Come Dancing, to look after the US tour. His name was Guy Phillips and he was a lovely person so I felt that I could talk to him quite openly about my desire to join DWTS. I asked him if I could take a screen test for the next series and he was very tactful about explaining that, although he thought I was an amazing dancer and he could see how much I enjoyed being on the tour, he didn’t think the American show would take me on as they already had three Eastern European girls on the show. But then he told me he knew that Strictly Come Dancing were looking for another professional couple to take part as they wanted to increase the number of celebrity dancers involved from fourteen to sixteen for the next series. Therefore they needed one more male and female professional dancer to partner the extra celebrities. Brian Fortuna was really excited and straight away told me he was going to try-out for the part of male dancer, but all I could say to him was, ‘But I live here, I don’t want to live in England!’
It was a gut reaction as it felt like I had already changed my life once fairly drastically by moving to the States from Russia. Of course it wasn’t that I had anything against England, but it seemed like another big jump for me. And I had asked my mum to come over from Russia to live with me in LA and had just started renting my own flat, so I really wasn’t sure if this was a good opportunity or not. Guy explained that the series of Strictly was only four months long, so I wouldn’t have to be in the UK forever if I didn’t want to, and once I had done the show, I could return to America. And who knows, having Strictly Come Dancing on my CV might work in my favour when it came to taking part in Dancing with the Stars.
I really appreciated Guy’s advice and he put me in contact with the producers of Strictly Come Dancing and I received an email asking me to send in all my showreels and CV, etc. It was the middle of January 2008 and they explained they were finishing their auditions for that year’s show on 15 February, so if I did want to be considered for Strictly I would have to come and audition on that day. It was all a little crazy and it worked out that Brian and I would finish our last show for Dancing with the Stars in Philadelphia, then we would have to fly directly to London to do the screen test.
Brian was really keen to go and he persuaded me that it was too good a chance to miss. His enthusiasm was infectious. If we got the job we would be dancing the professional group dances with each other and I did feel comfortable dancing with him, so I just thought, ‘Yeah, why not?’
So we flew to London, went straight to the BBC and met one of the producers. We had a forty-minute interview on camera – everything was being filmed for the executive producer to watch later – and it felt like it went on for ever. She was asking us a lot about what our teaching methods might be like – ‘What would you do if your person isn’t very good?’ and ‘What would you do if the person you are teaching is very difficult or has a temper?’ The list seemed endless but I gave them very honest answers and explained that I had studied psychology in college so I felt prepared for working with different personalities. I had also worked with so many different pupils in America who had a varying range of abilities and I knew I could work just as well with a complete novice as with someone who had a little dance background. And I had been teaching young children since I was fourteen years old in Russia so it wasn’t something I was worried about. I told them I loved choreography and I loved doing interesting, new and exciting stuff on the dance floor.
Then they asked Brian and I to perform a routine together so we did the cha-cha-cha, a routine that we had performed together on the DWTS tour. After that they asked me to actually show them how I would teach. They got one of the runners from the show who had never danced before and filmed me teaching him a few steps from the waltz and then the cha-cha-cha. Everyone was watching and then Brian had to do the same thing with a female runner and then all they said to us was, ‘OK, guys, thanks very much. We’ll keep in touch and let you know our decision soon.’
So we walked out after two hours of being in there and I turned to Brian and said, ‘There is no way I will have got that job, why would they take me when they probably have hundreds of girls wanting that job and I am just a girl from Russia with a heavy accent that they probably couldn’t even understand?’ I didn’t think for one moment that I would get the job.
But Brian just turned round to me and said, ‘Kris, we’ve definitely got it!’
I had no idea why he thought that or why he was so confident that we would get the job – it was so funny the way he just said, ‘Kris, we’ve definitely got it!’ Maybe it was his edge of American cockiness, but he did think we did a good job in the interview and we were the characters that the show was looking for.
So we went back to our hotel, where only a few hours earlier we had dumped our bags, gathered them back up again and flew back to America. We were in London for just one day as there was no point staying any longer, and I really wanted to get home to see my mum. I hadn’t seen her for ages as I’d been on tour, so it was nice to think when we got back to America, I could see her and take a bit of a break.
One of the first things I said to Mum when I got back was there was no way I would get the job on the show, so I needed to concentrate on teaching for a bit. And that was exactly what I focused on. I felt positive about it all, I wasn’t dwelling on losing out on the show – I truly believed that I wasn’t going to be offered a job. But I was living in LA and if ever there was a call from Dancing with the Stars, I was available. Plus, I also had my judging licence and I would have been happy to move around America if any judging opportunities came up. That is how I saw the next few months of my life.
I had absolutely no idea that the phone was about to ring and my life was going to take a whole new direction…
CHAPTER 15
Lights, camera, action!
It was a warm sunny day in May 2008 when I received the call. Being in London for twenty-four hours for a whirlwind audition back in February was a distant memory as I soaked up the LA sun. And then my phone rang and it was the producers from the show and I just heard the words, ‘You’ve got the job!’
I was in total shock. I couldn’t believe they wanted me as one of their professional dancers. Before I could even speak they carried on, explaining that I would have to come to London from August as the show runs from September to December. There were so many things to get organised too, and not only did they have to start processing my visa, I had to send them lots of information about all the competitions I had done, all my background – everything.
My mum couldn’t believe it. She was so funny and said, ‘Kristina, I have just moved from Russia to American to be here with you. And now you are leaving me!’
It was all a little bit surreal. My life was changing and moving in a totally new direction and I had no idea about what to expect – about the show or being on TV. In my mind, I saw it as just a job: I would make a bit of money, stay in England for four months and then come back to America. I never, ever thought I would stay in England more than I had to because I was happy in the States. After all, I had lived there for seven years and my life was very organised and settled and that is what I liked.
Of course I felt guilty about leaving my mum, even though she took it all in good spirits. When she first came over to America I arranged for her to start a course at the local college to study English as a second language. It was a six-month course and she was studying again (I have never known anyone enjoy learning as much as she does). I got friendly with a few ladies who I had taught and as they were slightly older, my mum’s age, I encouraged Mum to meet them, too, and they started taking her out for coffee and things. That was really good for my mum as she felt that she was a little independent and had a couple of her own friends to talk to as well. But it was hard for her,
too, as she was worried about me leaving for a whole new country again, so we tried to spend as much time together as we could in June and July.
We loved being in California together; it was by the sea, which made us both feel at home, and we really relaxed. Mum confessed that she had really, really missed me and had been very lonely. It was why she was so desperate to rent out the flat in Vladivostok to come and live with me in America. We both felt that we needed a home together, a base. Due to all the travelling I did with Brian and then Michael, it didn’t really feel like I had a place I could call home for a long time. But now we were together and we did have somewhere to come back to each day. Was I really ready to leave it all for a new start in London?
I wanted to make my mum happy and I wanted to take care of her and that time together was very special as it was a good chance to rebuild our relationship, too. You can’t choose your family and I understood that my relationship with my father was at a point where there wasn’t much I could do to repair or rebuild it. I wasn’t missing him and I didn’t need him – does that sound sad? It was different when I was a child; I missed him a lot when he would disappear for weeks on end. But then that feeling was replaced with a lot of sadness and anger about the fact that he didn’t help Mum when she needed him and he left me, a child myself, to deal with the difficult situation on my own. There wasn’t anything more I could give to my relationship with my dad but it was important that I had my mum in my life and so I focused on that.
I can tell my mum anything now. If I’m scared, for example, which is something I never admit to anyone, or if I feel vulnerable. Sometimes I am very insecure – I have only ever really had myself to rely on, it was just me to question every decision and wonder if it was the right thing to do. That is a lot of pressure and there were many times when I had to make big decisions on my own when other people might have called their parents or siblings for advice. I learnt to make these decisions myself and trust my instincts, which made me a strong person.
In my gut, the decision to move to England for Strictly seemed like the right one. It was an adventure and, although I hadn’t done TV work before, I had been teaching and competing for years now so I wasn’t afraid of the actual work involved. Brian, who had been on Dancing with the Stars, told me that the TV industry was a whole different world and I would become more well-known – even if I was only on the show for one series. It was a stable amount of work, too, from August to December, and I would be earning a good wage, so it would benefit both my mum and me.
Was I excited at that point about being on television? To be honest I didn’t know any different – I didn’t know what it would be like or how my life would change. At that stage the only real excitement I felt was about the fact that I would be having a new adventure. I would be doing a new job and meeting new people and it made me feel alive again. After stopping my professional competing career I did think that maybe I wouldn’t get the chance to dance again, although I was happy being a judge and a teacher. But I was only twenty-nine years old, so I still had that urge to dance within me.
It was another big move to a country where I wouldn’t know a soul, though. I told myself I had done it before so I could do it again. There were dancers on the show that I had seen at competitions and recognised, but I didn’t know them well enough to call any of them friends. It was good to go with Brian and have his support and advice.
So I had another tearful goodbye with my mum at the airport, but at least this time I knew that it would only be for a certain length of time and I was going over for a job, rather than moving to America with just a dream. When we landed in London, my first priority was to find a flat to rent as that was up to us to sort out ourselves. Part of the contract was that you had to be based in London for training so we knew we had to find something pretty quickly unless we wanted to waste all our money on hotels. But London was so expensive! I knew I didn’t want the flat to be too far from the BBC and so I concentrated on the area around there, just trying to find something that wasn’t too expensive to rent for my four-month stay. Brian wanted to have a luxury apartment and spend money on feeling comfortable and having somewhere nice to stay, whereas I felt completely differently and had the attitude of ‘I am only going to be living here for a few months, I don’t need a big space or anything fancy’. As a result I found the tiniest, tiniest little basement flat near Marble Arch tube station. It didn’t have any windows in the walls because of it being in the lower basement and you would walk through the front door and fall into the bed because there was so little space! There was one kitchen unit on the side and it had a shower and a toilet. But it was cheap and I knew I could live there – I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, I wanted to save as much as I could. Anyway, I had a nice flat in LA and I needed to support my mum: that was the priority.
I didn’t ever invite anyone around because there was no space – you would struggle to turn around from the kitchen to the bed! But it was a good location, a few minutes’ walk from the station, so it worked for me.
It wasn’t long before the BBC got in touch saying they needed the dancers to be in the studio to start recording their interviews, profile pieces on TV and to begin doing photoshoots. It was all very exciting, going to the BBC to have your hair and make-up done professionally, and people would be trying different costumes on us, too. I did my first profile shoot where I had to talk about myself and I just didn’t have a clue what to say! It was very odd to stand in front of a camera and talk about myself, but Brian suggested I talk about the titles I had won, where I was from and what I enjoyed doing. It was good advice but still all very strange.
And then it was time to meet the celebrities. I don’t know how familiar you might be with the show’s format now, but back in 2008, my first series, it was a very different set-up. Today you get paired with your celebrity on what is called ‘the launch show’ and you have no idea who that is going to be until it is announced in front of the cameras. Back then it was up to you to travel with a TV crew in tow to meet your celebrity at a venue near them.
I remember getting in the car and being taken to meet my celebrity. The whole way there I was thinking to myself, ‘This is so exciting! It’s going to be someone really young and cool and hot. I’m ready to go, and ready to show off some fabulous routines with my young partner and really impress everyone!’
I got a phone call while I was in the back of the car from a dancer friend who I had met through Paul Killick, who was living in London. He rang to wish me luck and told me that he had been reading in all the newspapers that a singer called Peter Andre was the hot favourite to be taking part in the show and maybe I would be partnered with him. At the time, I had absolutely no idea who Peter Andre was, but according to my friend he was really famous and married to a famous model. I didn’t have a clue – no disrespect to Peter Andre, I didn’t actually know any UK celebrities – but I did think at that point, ‘Great, he’s famous and so lots of people will want him to do well!’
Then when we arrived at the building where I now thought Peter Andre would be, one of the producers took me to one side and said, ‘Kristina, I just want to let you know that the person you are partnered with is a gentleman we have wanted on the show for years and years. We have been asking him for a long time and he’s always refused, but he’s finally said yes and we are so excited. So we are trusting you with this very important person. He is a national treasure and we are hoping you will be excited about working with him, too.’
Well, I was so pumped up after hearing that! I couldn’t wait… Anyway, the camera crew were right behind me ready to start filming and all I had to do was walk into a room and formally meet my celebrity dance partner. I was all ready, all prepared, so excited, I opened the door… and on the sofa the lovely John Sergeant was seated.
Of course, at that time I didn’t know how lovely he was. I just remember thinking, ‘I don’t know who this is, is this another producer from the show? Is he an agent of my celebrity?’ And
then he got up and came over and introduced himself to me. One of the first things he said was, ‘I hope you aren’t disappointed. I don’t know anything about dancing but I will be listening to you and trying my best.’
I just remember staring at him, thinking, ‘How on earth is he going to dance?’
He didn’t look in any kind of shape to dance – where was my young, fit dance partner? I was a little in shock. I kept thinking, ‘Why would they pair me with an older guy?’ I had just finished my competitive career so I could dance with someone younger and fitter and we could go all the way.
The most random thoughts kept popping into my head. I didn’t really know what to say to poor John!
We had to have a chat while they filmed us and he was so sweet. He told me that he knew a little bit of Russian as his mother and grandmother were from Ukraine and he had visited Russia a fair few times so he knew all about my country and the culture and then he said, ‘I hope you enjoy working with me.’ It was so sweet. But then he told me that he had just been to the doctor as his feet were very swollen from walking a lot and that we would have to take lots of breaks from dancing as they were constantly swollen. At that point I couldn’t hide my reaction.
‘Oh my Lord, what am I going to do with you?’ I exclaimed.
In my mind I was thinking, ‘If he can’t even walk because his feet will get swollen, how will he be able to dance?’
But he was so charming and I found myself laughing all the time because he was such a funny and sweet gentleman. When it came to being photographed in costume for the show we all met at the BBC and it was a chance to see who had been paired with whom and who the other celebrities were. I was coming up the stairs from the make-up room when I saw a couple of the professional male dancers and one of them said, ‘Kristina, I’m so sorry! John was probably not what you hoped for and I hope you aren’t too disappointed.’
Dancing Out of Darkness Page 12