Val Chmerkovskiy

Valentin Chmerkovskiy talks first season of 'Dancing With The Stars' on Disney+ streaming and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is on with Mario Lopeza cal Mario Lopez joining
me now on zoom from Dancing with the Stars, Welsh Murkowski,
welcome to show man, Hey, middle of rehearsal. That's right,
wot's tell Mario, thank you very much for having me man,
thanks for taking the time. Brothers so um jumping right
in your partner this season is Gabby from The Bachelorette,

(00:20):
and it seems like the Bachelor franchise has had a
pretty good run as of late, and she appears to
be a pretty quick learner. Is that the case? That
is a lot of that is the case. Let's start
with the fact that they have a great track record
on our show, the Bachelorettes do I think we had
two Bachelorette winners in the last four years, which is

(00:44):
crazy wo hopefully we're gonna make it three when I
know you don't have and you, being the pro dancers,
don't have necessarily say on who you're gonna be with.
Correct Yeah, And are you meeting your partner for the
first time not knowing as well as they are or

(01:05):
do you get heads up at least like a week
or two before so you can start prepping for many seasons,
I didn't even get a heads up. The last couple
of seasons, they've been asking if I wanted to know
who it is before I walk in the room. Did
you want to know? Yeah, no, I don't, just because
I I want a genuine reaction, you know, And I

(01:28):
think that translates on camera, and yeah, I'll take a
genuine reaction. They're just afraid that sometimes we might not know, right,
And so you know, you don't want that awkward, disrespectful moment.
But I don't think it's disrespect I think it's genuine
and human. Regardless of who you are when you meet
two to act like you're just meeting for the first time, right, right?

(01:50):
And do you usually have the same approach and strategy
regardless of who your partner is or you base it
on their their skill set an ability to pick up
by the moves. Yeah, is based on their skill set
and ability and who they are, their personality, what they
gravitate to doing, what they don't gravitate to doing. You

(02:11):
know somebody that's open mind. I mean I try to
encourage and inspire these things in them, right, so they
have the ability. I'm gonna I'm gonna create this you know,
I'm gonna inspire them to want of you know, try
different characters, different genres, not just do the thing that
they're great at, but push them to do things that
they're not you know, that's skilled in and and that

(02:33):
usually ends up being a really successful season because they
surprise themselves. It's just kind of like it's just a
good formula for me. I try to do what they're
great at, but also kind of push them outside of
that comfort. Yeah. Yeah, that's a delicate balance there. Um,
this is the first season, of course on Disney Plus.
How's the transition been? I mean, aside from there being

(02:54):
no commercials, is there much of a difference. That's been
the craziest thing. I mean, the no commerce shows is
a huge I mean logistically, you've made you know, you've
been on this the Stars, but you've made television in
every format for a long time. You understand the hands
that go in to actually flip in these sets. You
know how many people actually it takes to organize all

(03:14):
this stuff. Commercial break is kind of like this beautiful
place where people get to breathe set. Yeah, and now
we don't have that, and so the stage management have
been just rock stars the hands. Everybody has just been
killing it. So that's kind of been the biggest difference.
And I think it's going to get more and more
challenging as the season goes on because we're gonna have

(03:37):
less contestants, so there's gonna be you know, more in
television to fill. But that's great for us because we
get to dance more, show off more. As far as
the difference, um, you know, I just just seeing the
billboards on sunset, seeing the promotion that went into this season,
seeing the you know, the effort that Disney Plus as
a company and as an organization that's put into the

(03:59):
show that in itself has felt different. Nice and and
forgive me, I should have probably lead with this, but congratulations,
you're expecting your first child. Um, how far along? How
far along is? Uh? Jenna? She's six months? Okay, yeah,
six months? January is or? Do they and you found

(04:19):
out what you're having? Right? A boy? Yes, we're having
a boy. Yeah. Oh put the stem on the apple,
first one out. It's the best man. You got a
name picked out? Thank you, thank you. I do. But
my you know, I might as well divorce my wife
right now if I tell you what. Yeah, yeah, no,
it's a secret. Was it a was it a battle
or did you guys agree right away? Or were there

(04:39):
like a couple of contenders. There were maybe two contenders,
but it wasn't a bottle. I think we we have
like a pretty solid girl name and boy name. Okay,
what what did she do? January? Okay? Kick off the year?
There you go? How she it? She's great. It's been

(05:01):
it's been so exciting. You know. I kind of got
a little bit of an experience, you know, through my
brother and becoming an uncle and seeing that whole process.
But this has been so beautiful. I mean, I yeah,
I'm just ready to see life through the lens of
a father, of a human that brought life into the world.

(05:23):
You know. I think that's a very different perspective on everything.
You look at everything differently, and I'm ready to look
at everything from that perspective. Life will never be, never
be the same, but in a good way. And it'll compliment,
it'll compliment everything, and and uh, it's it's uh, it's
a trip, man. But it just gets better, better and
better as time as time goes on. So you're gonna

(05:44):
you're gonna love this next phase in your life. Congratulations
on that. Thank you. Meanwhile, we'll be cheering you on
Dancing the Stars of course, Mondays on Disney Plus. Thanks
so much for checking in, Mario, thank you brother, it's
ready to see. Congrats on everything than buddy. You know,
all the all the martial arts that you're doing. Man,
it's very inspiring. Yeah, you like it too, right, I

(06:06):
love it. I mean I'm a fan of it and uh,
you know, I boxed a little bit, but again I become.
I just love the culture. I love everything that's around
that gym, that process. You know, ironically, I see parallels
even growing up and dance very much that process. Yeah,
so yeah, it's cool. I like that community. You ever
want to train, let me know, brother, we'll go to

(06:28):
I'll check, You'll take you to gym. I'm gonna train
before I train. Take care, Take care On with Mario
Lope