SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE
Interview with CAT DEELEY
CAT DEELEY Host of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE
Watch SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE Season Seven Finale on Wednesday & Thursday Night August 11 and 12 at 8-10 PM EST on FOX
August 11, 2010
By Lena Lamoray
CAT DEELEY has hosted SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE on FOX for the past six seasons. She marvels us every week with her unique fashion and genuine compassion for the dancers. She connects with the contestants more than any other host and I do believe that she has been taller than pretty much every one of them! Cat’s compassion doesn’t just apply to the show, she is known for working with the Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children’s hospital in London. Watch Cat on “So You Think You Can Dance”.
I spoke with the gorgeous CAT DEELEY, host of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE about the show and the season finale. Watch “So You Think You Can Dance” on FOX!
Lena Lamoray: Besides finding out who is America’s favorite dancer, what are you looking forward to the most regarding the finale?
CAT DEELEY: Well, we've got lots of interesting performances. We've got the LXB dancers are coming on. We've got Quest that … and Dominic's crew. They're coming on. Black Gold are going to be performing, and they're also going to be some very, very surprise special guests, which obviously I can't tell you about obviously. But there's going to be some moments that are definitely going to be must-see TV and water cooler conversation is going to be like, "Oh my goodness. Did you just see who performed that routine with tWitch?" Because he's going to be performing the Alex .
Interview with CAT DEELEY
CAT DEELEY Host of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE
Watch SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE Season Seven Finale on Wednesday & Thursday Night August 11 and 12 at 8-10 PM EST on FOX
August 11, 2010
By Lena Lamoray
CAT DEELEY has hosted SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE on FOX for the past six seasons. She marvels us every week with her unique fashion and genuine compassion for the dancers. She connects with the contestants more than any other host and I do believe that she has been taller than pretty much every one of them! Cat’s compassion doesn’t just apply to the show, she is known for working with the Great Ormond Street Hospital, a children’s hospital in London. Watch Cat on “So You Think You Can Dance”.
I spoke with the gorgeous CAT DEELEY, host of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE about the show and the season finale. Watch “So You Think You Can Dance” on FOX!
Lena Lamoray: Besides finding out who is America’s favorite dancer, what are you looking forward to the most regarding the finale?
CAT DEELEY: Well, we've got lots of interesting performances. We've got the LXB dancers are coming on. We've got Quest that … and Dominic's crew. They're coming on. Black Gold are going to be performing, and they're also going to be some very, very surprise special guests, which obviously I can't tell you about obviously. But there's going to be some moments that are definitely going to be must-see TV and water cooler conversation is going to be like, "Oh my goodness. Did you just see who performed that routine with tWitch?" Because he's going to be performing the Alex .
Wong hip-hop piece that Tabitha and Napoleon choreographed with a very special guest dancer.
Lena Lamoray: Can you share any funny stories of what goes on behind the scenes of So You Think You Can Dance?
CAT DEELEY: Yes, I can. When I had all the dancers around to my house for 4th of July barbeque, one of the makeup artists came over to the house as well, and she was administering sun cream on all of them because she's like, "The last thing I can deal with is anybody with sunburn." And Kent got in the pool and did a summersault and bumped his nose twice. He didn't just do it once. He didn't learn his lesson. He bumped his nose twice, so the next week it literally looked as though he kind of cut open all of his nose from being in my swimming pool. I was in big trouble with the makeup artists.
Additional Interview Conference Call Highlights:
Q: How have you adjusted to Los Angeles and working here and how was the transition for you?
CAT DEELEY: Well, you know what, I'm so pleased because you never know quite how you're going to be received when you go into a different country. For me, it was all about making it into an adventure. It was about moving and coming here and trying to do the show, but at the same time, it was finding my way around and putting gas in my car instead of petrol and finding the nearest supermarket and all that kind of stuff. I love life here in LA. The sunshine and palm trees get me every time. It's great, but of course, I miss home. I miss my friends and my family, but I still have my apartment back in the U.K. as well. So as soon as I go back to the U.K., I see everybody and catch up with everybody too. I still do So You Can Think You Can Dance back in the U.K. as well, so as soon as we finished here, we start doing auditions over there, and that's going to be on BBC 1, I think sometime early next year.
Q: I'm really curious about the Children's Hospital, Ormond Street Hospital. I read in your bio that you work with them, and I wondered if you could tell your fans and us about your work with them and what the hospital does.
CAT DEELEY: Ormond Street Children's Hospital is one of the foremost hospitals in all of Europe. Actually, any child that's ill, they kind of helicopter in because the specialists there and the doctors and nurses are so incredible I started working with them I think about eight years ago or something like that, and I recently actually just did a campaign with Kiehl’s, where all the money was donated to Great Ormond Street. Obviously with me living here, I can't go into the hospital as many times as I would like to, but whenever I'm back, I try and go in there and go and see everybody. So, I have two major charities that I work for. I do Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, and I also work for UNICEF as well. Recently, I went to Madagascar with UNICEF, and we filmed a mini documentary about the immunization programs there, and what's going to happen if they don't get the funding from UNICEF and stuff. Well obviously, they won't be able to have access to immunizations that we completely take for granted like polio and TB and all that stuff. So yes, I'm very fortunate to be able to work with both, and both are working with kids as well. I love kids, and I think it's a way of using my celebrity or fame for something really great. It means that it then has some value, whereas if it doesn't, I don't need any more free shoes and handbags. It's kind of much more useful to be able to draw attention to both fantastic causes.
Q: When you first started hosting the show, did you ever think that it would get as big as it is?
CAT DEELEY: To be perfectly honest, I didn't. I mean I kind of dreamed that it might be, and of course, I wanted it to be a huge success. You can never envision that kind of level of success, and people are really passionate about it too. It's not just the figures that we get, but it's actually the people that watch are absolutely 100% dedicated fans that are completely passionate about it. It's not kind of as though our audience dips in and dips out of it and watches other things. It's like they follow the show every single week, and they feel as though they know every single dancer.
That's what I love most of all about it. I love the passion that's behind it and how the audience really gets involved. That's something that we never take for granted. That's why we wanted to mix it up a little bit this year and have the All-Stars on the show and Mia on the panel because I think that we have to try and constantly surprise, delight, and entertain.
Q: You're talking about all those season seven changes. How has it been? This season has been a big shock I think for a lot of people, having those All-Stars and just the different structure of the season.
CAT DEELEY: To be honest, I loved it because just on a professional level, I think the All-Stars upped the ante a little bit. I think they really helped the dancers. They've been invaluable to them not just in terms of their professional, technical dancing but also in terms of what the experience is all about and the things that you should remember. They're very good about giving advice too. On a personal level, I loved just having them back because I get the chance to see them all again. It's like they've all gone off to college and tWitch has done Step Up 3D, and Mark's been on tour with Lady Gaga. They've all been doing their own little things and then they come back, and I can catch up with them all and find out exactly what they've been doing, how much they're enjoying life, who's kissing who, all that kind of good stuff. It's been great to just have them back on a personal level.
Q: Some reality show host, they sort of separate themselves a little bit from the competition. You've taken them under your wing. You aren't afraid to speak your mind about what you think. Is there something you felt compelled to do to really put what's on your mind out there and sort of become good friends with the competitors?
CAT DEELEY: To be honest, it was a very natural thing. It wasn't kind of like some preconceived idea I had. I very much wanted to be a part of it. I didn't want to come onto the show and then people be like, "Hold on. Who's this English chick who's trying to be our friend?" You know what I mean? I wanted to definitely integrate myself in there, and that's something that we started doing right at the beginning. So if the dancers stood outside and it's five o'clock in the morning and the snow's coming down in New York to go and audition, then I'm there with them too. I wanted to be a part of their entire journey, and they're really great people in all honesty. Dancers have this—it's a quite unique mentality. It's very much they have a sense of camaraderie, and they're team players. And I also think it comes from the fact that nobody dances to really become super famous or super rich. They dance because they love it. Because in actual fact, it's a really, really tough occupation. Quite often they're underpaid, underappreciated. They're not normally the people in the spotlight, and their career is very short. They're struggling with injuries all the time and all those different things, so they have to want to do it because they love dance. I find that incredibly attractive, and I couldn't help but get involved, to be honest. I'd be a pretty strange person, I think, if I didn't feel drawn to them in that kind of way. It ends up with them coming around to my house for 4th of July barbecue and hanging out and swimming in my pool. The irony of this is not wasted on me. I know I'm British and I really shouldn't be doing that, but it's fun, and I like being involved with them.
Q: Are there any specific dance moves that strike you, something that you saw that you'd never seen before? Anything this year that just was brand new to you?
CAT DEELEY: There are always brand new things. There’s Bollywood and then there was a kind of Hawaiian dance. There are always new moves, and Mia Michaels never fails to impress with her kind of crazy choreography. It's so beautiful to watch and have a story and a vision and it's a great piece of art. So for me, that's definitely one thing that I've grown to have on the show is a great appreciation of dance. I'd never appreciated it as much as I do right now. It is an art form and it can physically move you. It can give you chills and make the hairs on your arm stand on end. That's what never ceases to amaze me. The way that a dance routine can touch you in the way that any great piece of art can touch you.
Q: I really do think that you've got the best judges of pretty much any competitive reality program, and I was wondering if you'd talk a little bit about the alchemy of finding the right combination of judges and the role that they play in the show's success.
CAT DEELEY: It's very difficult to find the right kind of— The balance between them, it's always kind of quite hard. Even if you've got the same people on, it can change from show to show because of course as people are talking, you kind of feed off them too. So it really can change. I think the first thing that we always try and do is have judges on the show that the dancers really want to know their opinion. They really want to hear what they have got to say, and that amounts to the work that they do, their incredible choreography, and also their success within the field too. I think that's one of the great things, and we try and get different people. Mia is incredibly creative. She's a choreographer, and she's Emmy award winning. And then we've got Adam who has a really amazing successful career in movies, and then course, there's Nigel who started off as a dance. So I think they have to have that kind of base and experience to draw on. I think that's the most important thing. And then to try and get them all working together as well at the same time is really important.
Q: How do you get them working together? You can have a lot of expertise and authority but still be pretty boring, and they're not.
CAT DEELEY: Absolutely. I think because they are opinionated actually, and I like it. That's always what we try and say. You either love it or hate it, but you have an opinion about it. As long as you can justify your opinion and as long as you can explain it to an audience at home, that's brilliant. We don't want everybody to like everything. There are definite moments, all like something at the same time or all hate something at the same time. That's when the panel gets the most interesting and the most vibrant is when they have strong opinions that don't necessarily all match and they clash slightly.
Q: I was wondering if you could recommend any good British dance music for us.
CAT DEELEY: Oh goodness. I don’t know because I haven't been back there for such a long time actually. I do like a girl called La Roux. I don't know if you necessarily say it was dance, but there's this amazing girl. She's almost a little bit David Bowie, and her name's La Roux. She's got some great tracks actually.
Q: What do you have to say about the injuries this season? Do you think the format was a bit more daunting for the dancers this year?
CAT DEELEY: I really don't know because in terms of the amount of time that they spend dancing and in terms of what we're asking them to do physically, there's nothing really that different from this season to the past six seasons before. So I really don't know other than to say it's been the curse of season seven. I don't know, and that's definitely something that we're looking into because we don't want people to be injured either. We want these kind of dancers to learn from the experience, and we want to push them as far as we can but we certainly don't want anybody to be injured. So it's definitely something that we're looking at. In terms of it being something as simple as, "Oh now, they're doing 15 hours of rehearsal a week instead of 7," that just simply isn't the case. There's not an obvious stand-out reason why they are getting injured this season.
Q: You were talking about the judges earlier, and I keep getting readers telling me how much they missed Mary Murphy this season. What did you think of the show's first season without her?
CAT DEELEY: I think we all miss Mary Murphy. She was definitely part of the panel, and I think she will definitely come back. I think that's one thing about the show is that it really is a family, and the door is always open and everybody can always come back. Mia didn't do a season with us and then she came back. I think it's just to keep mixing it up a little bit. On a personal level, I miss having Mary Murphy around because she's always so enthusiastic and so full of fun and energy and craziness. I kind of miss that, you know?
Q: Can you talk about the fans' response to the season injuries this year?
CAT DEELEY: To be honest, I can't. I don't know anything else about it, other than people do get upset about it because I think what happens is—particularly with people like, for instance, Alex Wong. He was a ballet dancer, and then he came on the one week and did that amazing hip-hop routine, the Tabitha and Napoleon hip-hop routine with tWitch. And he was incredible. He literally got a standing ovation. For a ballet dancer to perform that routine and not just perform it but own it at the same time was incredible. I think what happens is the fans get invested in people, particularly when they see someone triumphing over a dance style that they wouldn't necessarily do. I can understand the fans being upset when he gets injured the next week on Bollywood. But as I said kind of at the beginning of this, that that's a dancer's life. Quite often, they are fighting injuries because physically it's so demanding. As far as I can say, we're trying to find the reason why people have been getting injured this season more so than any other, but like I said before, there's no obvious reason.
Q: This season also incorporated a variety of changes from the judging lineup to the way that the dancers actually have to be paired up with the All-Stars. How do you see these changes affecting the seasons to come?
CAT DEELEY: I think it's something that the audience has to get used to too. I think that with any formatted show, I think the moment you change things up, I think it takes people a few weeks to get into it. But from people that I've spoken to about it, they are massive fans of the show and so passionate about it. Some people said to me at the beginning, "Oh, I'm not sure about the All-Stars. Don't really like it. Don't know who to watch. Not sure." And now we come to the end of the season, and they're like, "Love it." It's one of those things where you just have to get used to it and you have to properly understand the format. Then I think it becomes exciting, and I think that's something that this season has definitely been is a transition.
Q: One of the hallmarks of So You Think You Can Dance the last couple of years have been the dances that go beyond being dance. They get social issues. The Breast Cancer dance a year or two ago that left everybody crying as well as standing. What we called the door dancing with domestic violence. Anything like that this year? And when you get dances like that on the program, what kind of audience reaction do you get from people who may have been hit by an issue like breast cancer or by abuse?
CAT DEELEY: There's always a massive, massive reaction. It kind of goes back to the other question before where I think that what those dances show is that they are messages and they are pieces of art. What describes a piece of art is it's a vortex that you can put your own interpretation onto and particularly if viewers are some way or another been touched in your life by any of these issues, it makes it very easy for those emotions to come to the surface. That's something we do try and do. We don't want to make every single dance that like. Sometimes it's just nice to have something really fun and really upbeat or Bollywood or something really different. But we always try and do this every single season. There was a routine this season with Robert and Travis choreographed, and it was incredible. And then there was another one with Neal and with Kent, again that Travis choreographed that was about a friendship and someone stabbing someone else in the back. There were moments that are just so incredibly honest that you can't help but be moved by them, you know? And also put it into your own life. I remember when we did the breast cancer dance with Ade and Melissa, there was actually a little girl in the studio whose mom had just been diagnosed, and she burst into tears. In one way you feel terrible because obviously you see somebody's sadness and you see how it terribly affects their lives, but on the other way, it's actually quite good for that to come out in a weird way. Otherwise, maybe she would never have been so upset and maybe never— I think it's all part of the healing process. It's incredible to see how dance can move people physically in that way, I mean two tears, is truly incredible for me.
Q: You did 20Q game show for GSN last summer. What did you get out of the experience and has Fox or GSN or anybody else approached you about doing another game show?
CAT DEELEY: It's definitely something that I might always do because I also did Who Wants To Be A Millionaire too. And it was weird. It was always one of those things that I was never really interested in. Then I first did Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and I kind of quite liked it because you're so in charge, and it's all the lights and the …. You're kind of reading the computer at the same time, and you're very much kind of controlling it. I quite enjoyed it actually, so maybe it's something I would do again in the future if the right project came up.
Q: So the finale's obviously this week and who do you think will win?
CAT DEELEY: I mean, I think it could be any one of the three. I think that Robert is exceptionally strong. I think that Lauren is the last girl left and has been for like weeks now, and I also think Kent has that kind of charm that viewers just find incredibly endearing. If I was a betting woman and I had to put some money where my mouth is, I would probably go for Kent, but that's not to do with his technical ability. It's more to do with the reaction that I see from the screaming girls in the studio. I mean it's literally like Beatle Mania when he hits the stage and hormones are rushing everywhere, and there's just general high-pitched screaming. So I think it might be Kent.
Q: When you started with the top 11, did you think it might be these 3 or were you surprised with your final 3?
CAT DEELEY: There were elements of surprise to it, definitely. I think I always saw Kent as a real competitor, actually. Right from the moment when he was in Vegas, he just had something about him that was so endearing. He has a very childlike quality, and he's a little green but in the most wonderful way. He just kind of says what comes into his mind. He doesn't try and play the show or play the cameras. And I think people find that incredibly refreshing, so I kind of knew he'd make it onto the show from seeing him in Vegas, but I didn't know he would get this far.
Q: I think there's been some seasons where the talent's been out of the control and the likability and the favoritism isn't always there, and then you have seasons where you love the contestants but like the performances haven't been as up to par as other seasons. I kind of want your opinion on what you think of this year's cast?
CAT DEELEY: Well, I love the cast this season. That's the whole thing is that we are casting a TV show, so it wouldn't be great to have all the same type of people in one show because nobody would watch. And also, the thing that we're doing is we're looking for America's favorite dancer. If you go back on previous seasons, quite often the best technical dancer hasn't won. That's because they have to be able to communicate with the audience too. They have to have that certain star quality, whatever that kind of X-factor, star quality, magic fairy dust is that makes people connect with them, they have to have that as well. Because literally, America votes. They have to get up off the couch, and they have to use their phone and call for them, so what we try and do is we try and balance it all out. Yes, of course, they have to be great technical dancers because there's no way they could stay in the competition this long if they weren't, but they have to have that thing of connecting with an audience too. That normally involves having a great personality, a sense of humor, being able to tell stories, think on your feet. All those kind of things are what connects an audience to a particular dancer.
Q: You’ve hosted this show for six seasons now. I was wondering if you maybe had a favorite season or favorite cast?
CAT DEELEY: I actually do really like this year. I think we kind of got it right with the kids that we chose. I think they were brilliant. What I also like to see is I like to see people from previous seasons that go on and do amazing things. Like, for instance, Mark has kind of gone on tour and been on tour with Lady Gaga and doing all that, and he comes back to the studio and all of a sudden, he's a man. I'm like, "Oh my goodness. What happened to you?" Then people like Travis. Travis Wall was originally a contestant on the show, season two, and now he's doing the most incredible choreography. He used his experience on the show and used the platform that we elevated him to and ran with it and turned that kind of luck into opportunity. He's now choreographing the most amazing work. I'm absolutely in no doubt that he will win an Emmy
Lena Lamoray: Can you share any funny stories of what goes on behind the scenes of So You Think You Can Dance?
CAT DEELEY: Yes, I can. When I had all the dancers around to my house for 4th of July barbeque, one of the makeup artists came over to the house as well, and she was administering sun cream on all of them because she's like, "The last thing I can deal with is anybody with sunburn." And Kent got in the pool and did a summersault and bumped his nose twice. He didn't just do it once. He didn't learn his lesson. He bumped his nose twice, so the next week it literally looked as though he kind of cut open all of his nose from being in my swimming pool. I was in big trouble with the makeup artists.
Additional Interview Conference Call Highlights:
Q: How have you adjusted to Los Angeles and working here and how was the transition for you?
CAT DEELEY: Well, you know what, I'm so pleased because you never know quite how you're going to be received when you go into a different country. For me, it was all about making it into an adventure. It was about moving and coming here and trying to do the show, but at the same time, it was finding my way around and putting gas in my car instead of petrol and finding the nearest supermarket and all that kind of stuff. I love life here in LA. The sunshine and palm trees get me every time. It's great, but of course, I miss home. I miss my friends and my family, but I still have my apartment back in the U.K. as well. So as soon as I go back to the U.K., I see everybody and catch up with everybody too. I still do So You Can Think You Can Dance back in the U.K. as well, so as soon as we finished here, we start doing auditions over there, and that's going to be on BBC 1, I think sometime early next year.
Q: I'm really curious about the Children's Hospital, Ormond Street Hospital. I read in your bio that you work with them, and I wondered if you could tell your fans and us about your work with them and what the hospital does.
CAT DEELEY: Ormond Street Children's Hospital is one of the foremost hospitals in all of Europe. Actually, any child that's ill, they kind of helicopter in because the specialists there and the doctors and nurses are so incredible I started working with them I think about eight years ago or something like that, and I recently actually just did a campaign with Kiehl’s, where all the money was donated to Great Ormond Street. Obviously with me living here, I can't go into the hospital as many times as I would like to, but whenever I'm back, I try and go in there and go and see everybody. So, I have two major charities that I work for. I do Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, and I also work for UNICEF as well. Recently, I went to Madagascar with UNICEF, and we filmed a mini documentary about the immunization programs there, and what's going to happen if they don't get the funding from UNICEF and stuff. Well obviously, they won't be able to have access to immunizations that we completely take for granted like polio and TB and all that stuff. So yes, I'm very fortunate to be able to work with both, and both are working with kids as well. I love kids, and I think it's a way of using my celebrity or fame for something really great. It means that it then has some value, whereas if it doesn't, I don't need any more free shoes and handbags. It's kind of much more useful to be able to draw attention to both fantastic causes.
Q: When you first started hosting the show, did you ever think that it would get as big as it is?
CAT DEELEY: To be perfectly honest, I didn't. I mean I kind of dreamed that it might be, and of course, I wanted it to be a huge success. You can never envision that kind of level of success, and people are really passionate about it too. It's not just the figures that we get, but it's actually the people that watch are absolutely 100% dedicated fans that are completely passionate about it. It's not kind of as though our audience dips in and dips out of it and watches other things. It's like they follow the show every single week, and they feel as though they know every single dancer.
That's what I love most of all about it. I love the passion that's behind it and how the audience really gets involved. That's something that we never take for granted. That's why we wanted to mix it up a little bit this year and have the All-Stars on the show and Mia on the panel because I think that we have to try and constantly surprise, delight, and entertain.
Q: You're talking about all those season seven changes. How has it been? This season has been a big shock I think for a lot of people, having those All-Stars and just the different structure of the season.
CAT DEELEY: To be honest, I loved it because just on a professional level, I think the All-Stars upped the ante a little bit. I think they really helped the dancers. They've been invaluable to them not just in terms of their professional, technical dancing but also in terms of what the experience is all about and the things that you should remember. They're very good about giving advice too. On a personal level, I loved just having them back because I get the chance to see them all again. It's like they've all gone off to college and tWitch has done Step Up 3D, and Mark's been on tour with Lady Gaga. They've all been doing their own little things and then they come back, and I can catch up with them all and find out exactly what they've been doing, how much they're enjoying life, who's kissing who, all that kind of good stuff. It's been great to just have them back on a personal level.
Q: Some reality show host, they sort of separate themselves a little bit from the competition. You've taken them under your wing. You aren't afraid to speak your mind about what you think. Is there something you felt compelled to do to really put what's on your mind out there and sort of become good friends with the competitors?
CAT DEELEY: To be honest, it was a very natural thing. It wasn't kind of like some preconceived idea I had. I very much wanted to be a part of it. I didn't want to come onto the show and then people be like, "Hold on. Who's this English chick who's trying to be our friend?" You know what I mean? I wanted to definitely integrate myself in there, and that's something that we started doing right at the beginning. So if the dancers stood outside and it's five o'clock in the morning and the snow's coming down in New York to go and audition, then I'm there with them too. I wanted to be a part of their entire journey, and they're really great people in all honesty. Dancers have this—it's a quite unique mentality. It's very much they have a sense of camaraderie, and they're team players. And I also think it comes from the fact that nobody dances to really become super famous or super rich. They dance because they love it. Because in actual fact, it's a really, really tough occupation. Quite often they're underpaid, underappreciated. They're not normally the people in the spotlight, and their career is very short. They're struggling with injuries all the time and all those different things, so they have to want to do it because they love dance. I find that incredibly attractive, and I couldn't help but get involved, to be honest. I'd be a pretty strange person, I think, if I didn't feel drawn to them in that kind of way. It ends up with them coming around to my house for 4th of July barbecue and hanging out and swimming in my pool. The irony of this is not wasted on me. I know I'm British and I really shouldn't be doing that, but it's fun, and I like being involved with them.
Q: Are there any specific dance moves that strike you, something that you saw that you'd never seen before? Anything this year that just was brand new to you?
CAT DEELEY: There are always brand new things. There’s Bollywood and then there was a kind of Hawaiian dance. There are always new moves, and Mia Michaels never fails to impress with her kind of crazy choreography. It's so beautiful to watch and have a story and a vision and it's a great piece of art. So for me, that's definitely one thing that I've grown to have on the show is a great appreciation of dance. I'd never appreciated it as much as I do right now. It is an art form and it can physically move you. It can give you chills and make the hairs on your arm stand on end. That's what never ceases to amaze me. The way that a dance routine can touch you in the way that any great piece of art can touch you.
Q: I really do think that you've got the best judges of pretty much any competitive reality program, and I was wondering if you'd talk a little bit about the alchemy of finding the right combination of judges and the role that they play in the show's success.
CAT DEELEY: It's very difficult to find the right kind of— The balance between them, it's always kind of quite hard. Even if you've got the same people on, it can change from show to show because of course as people are talking, you kind of feed off them too. So it really can change. I think the first thing that we always try and do is have judges on the show that the dancers really want to know their opinion. They really want to hear what they have got to say, and that amounts to the work that they do, their incredible choreography, and also their success within the field too. I think that's one of the great things, and we try and get different people. Mia is incredibly creative. She's a choreographer, and she's Emmy award winning. And then we've got Adam who has a really amazing successful career in movies, and then course, there's Nigel who started off as a dance. So I think they have to have that kind of base and experience to draw on. I think that's the most important thing. And then to try and get them all working together as well at the same time is really important.
Q: How do you get them working together? You can have a lot of expertise and authority but still be pretty boring, and they're not.
CAT DEELEY: Absolutely. I think because they are opinionated actually, and I like it. That's always what we try and say. You either love it or hate it, but you have an opinion about it. As long as you can justify your opinion and as long as you can explain it to an audience at home, that's brilliant. We don't want everybody to like everything. There are definite moments, all like something at the same time or all hate something at the same time. That's when the panel gets the most interesting and the most vibrant is when they have strong opinions that don't necessarily all match and they clash slightly.
Q: I was wondering if you could recommend any good British dance music for us.
CAT DEELEY: Oh goodness. I don’t know because I haven't been back there for such a long time actually. I do like a girl called La Roux. I don't know if you necessarily say it was dance, but there's this amazing girl. She's almost a little bit David Bowie, and her name's La Roux. She's got some great tracks actually.
Q: What do you have to say about the injuries this season? Do you think the format was a bit more daunting for the dancers this year?
CAT DEELEY: I really don't know because in terms of the amount of time that they spend dancing and in terms of what we're asking them to do physically, there's nothing really that different from this season to the past six seasons before. So I really don't know other than to say it's been the curse of season seven. I don't know, and that's definitely something that we're looking into because we don't want people to be injured either. We want these kind of dancers to learn from the experience, and we want to push them as far as we can but we certainly don't want anybody to be injured. So it's definitely something that we're looking at. In terms of it being something as simple as, "Oh now, they're doing 15 hours of rehearsal a week instead of 7," that just simply isn't the case. There's not an obvious stand-out reason why they are getting injured this season.
Q: You were talking about the judges earlier, and I keep getting readers telling me how much they missed Mary Murphy this season. What did you think of the show's first season without her?
CAT DEELEY: I think we all miss Mary Murphy. She was definitely part of the panel, and I think she will definitely come back. I think that's one thing about the show is that it really is a family, and the door is always open and everybody can always come back. Mia didn't do a season with us and then she came back. I think it's just to keep mixing it up a little bit. On a personal level, I miss having Mary Murphy around because she's always so enthusiastic and so full of fun and energy and craziness. I kind of miss that, you know?
Q: Can you talk about the fans' response to the season injuries this year?
CAT DEELEY: To be honest, I can't. I don't know anything else about it, other than people do get upset about it because I think what happens is—particularly with people like, for instance, Alex Wong. He was a ballet dancer, and then he came on the one week and did that amazing hip-hop routine, the Tabitha and Napoleon hip-hop routine with tWitch. And he was incredible. He literally got a standing ovation. For a ballet dancer to perform that routine and not just perform it but own it at the same time was incredible. I think what happens is the fans get invested in people, particularly when they see someone triumphing over a dance style that they wouldn't necessarily do. I can understand the fans being upset when he gets injured the next week on Bollywood. But as I said kind of at the beginning of this, that that's a dancer's life. Quite often, they are fighting injuries because physically it's so demanding. As far as I can say, we're trying to find the reason why people have been getting injured this season more so than any other, but like I said before, there's no obvious reason.
Q: This season also incorporated a variety of changes from the judging lineup to the way that the dancers actually have to be paired up with the All-Stars. How do you see these changes affecting the seasons to come?
CAT DEELEY: I think it's something that the audience has to get used to too. I think that with any formatted show, I think the moment you change things up, I think it takes people a few weeks to get into it. But from people that I've spoken to about it, they are massive fans of the show and so passionate about it. Some people said to me at the beginning, "Oh, I'm not sure about the All-Stars. Don't really like it. Don't know who to watch. Not sure." And now we come to the end of the season, and they're like, "Love it." It's one of those things where you just have to get used to it and you have to properly understand the format. Then I think it becomes exciting, and I think that's something that this season has definitely been is a transition.
Q: One of the hallmarks of So You Think You Can Dance the last couple of years have been the dances that go beyond being dance. They get social issues. The Breast Cancer dance a year or two ago that left everybody crying as well as standing. What we called the door dancing with domestic violence. Anything like that this year? And when you get dances like that on the program, what kind of audience reaction do you get from people who may have been hit by an issue like breast cancer or by abuse?
CAT DEELEY: There's always a massive, massive reaction. It kind of goes back to the other question before where I think that what those dances show is that they are messages and they are pieces of art. What describes a piece of art is it's a vortex that you can put your own interpretation onto and particularly if viewers are some way or another been touched in your life by any of these issues, it makes it very easy for those emotions to come to the surface. That's something we do try and do. We don't want to make every single dance that like. Sometimes it's just nice to have something really fun and really upbeat or Bollywood or something really different. But we always try and do this every single season. There was a routine this season with Robert and Travis choreographed, and it was incredible. And then there was another one with Neal and with Kent, again that Travis choreographed that was about a friendship and someone stabbing someone else in the back. There were moments that are just so incredibly honest that you can't help but be moved by them, you know? And also put it into your own life. I remember when we did the breast cancer dance with Ade and Melissa, there was actually a little girl in the studio whose mom had just been diagnosed, and she burst into tears. In one way you feel terrible because obviously you see somebody's sadness and you see how it terribly affects their lives, but on the other way, it's actually quite good for that to come out in a weird way. Otherwise, maybe she would never have been so upset and maybe never— I think it's all part of the healing process. It's incredible to see how dance can move people physically in that way, I mean two tears, is truly incredible for me.
Q: You did 20Q game show for GSN last summer. What did you get out of the experience and has Fox or GSN or anybody else approached you about doing another game show?
CAT DEELEY: It's definitely something that I might always do because I also did Who Wants To Be A Millionaire too. And it was weird. It was always one of those things that I was never really interested in. Then I first did Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and I kind of quite liked it because you're so in charge, and it's all the lights and the …. You're kind of reading the computer at the same time, and you're very much kind of controlling it. I quite enjoyed it actually, so maybe it's something I would do again in the future if the right project came up.
Q: So the finale's obviously this week and who do you think will win?
CAT DEELEY: I mean, I think it could be any one of the three. I think that Robert is exceptionally strong. I think that Lauren is the last girl left and has been for like weeks now, and I also think Kent has that kind of charm that viewers just find incredibly endearing. If I was a betting woman and I had to put some money where my mouth is, I would probably go for Kent, but that's not to do with his technical ability. It's more to do with the reaction that I see from the screaming girls in the studio. I mean it's literally like Beatle Mania when he hits the stage and hormones are rushing everywhere, and there's just general high-pitched screaming. So I think it might be Kent.
Q: When you started with the top 11, did you think it might be these 3 or were you surprised with your final 3?
CAT DEELEY: There were elements of surprise to it, definitely. I think I always saw Kent as a real competitor, actually. Right from the moment when he was in Vegas, he just had something about him that was so endearing. He has a very childlike quality, and he's a little green but in the most wonderful way. He just kind of says what comes into his mind. He doesn't try and play the show or play the cameras. And I think people find that incredibly refreshing, so I kind of knew he'd make it onto the show from seeing him in Vegas, but I didn't know he would get this far.
Q: I think there's been some seasons where the talent's been out of the control and the likability and the favoritism isn't always there, and then you have seasons where you love the contestants but like the performances haven't been as up to par as other seasons. I kind of want your opinion on what you think of this year's cast?
CAT DEELEY: Well, I love the cast this season. That's the whole thing is that we are casting a TV show, so it wouldn't be great to have all the same type of people in one show because nobody would watch. And also, the thing that we're doing is we're looking for America's favorite dancer. If you go back on previous seasons, quite often the best technical dancer hasn't won. That's because they have to be able to communicate with the audience too. They have to have that certain star quality, whatever that kind of X-factor, star quality, magic fairy dust is that makes people connect with them, they have to have that as well. Because literally, America votes. They have to get up off the couch, and they have to use their phone and call for them, so what we try and do is we try and balance it all out. Yes, of course, they have to be great technical dancers because there's no way they could stay in the competition this long if they weren't, but they have to have that thing of connecting with an audience too. That normally involves having a great personality, a sense of humor, being able to tell stories, think on your feet. All those kind of things are what connects an audience to a particular dancer.
Q: You’ve hosted this show for six seasons now. I was wondering if you maybe had a favorite season or favorite cast?
CAT DEELEY: I actually do really like this year. I think we kind of got it right with the kids that we chose. I think they were brilliant. What I also like to see is I like to see people from previous seasons that go on and do amazing things. Like, for instance, Mark has kind of gone on tour and been on tour with Lady Gaga and doing all that, and he comes back to the studio and all of a sudden, he's a man. I'm like, "Oh my goodness. What happened to you?" Then people like Travis. Travis Wall was originally a contestant on the show, season two, and now he's doing the most incredible choreography. He used his experience on the show and used the platform that we elevated him to and ran with it and turned that kind of luck into opportunity. He's now choreographing the most amazing work. I'm absolutely in no doubt that he will win an Emmy