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KW: And to start young is key. It’s vital. I know plenty of dancers that started when they were 19 and are dancing with Janet Jackson right now, but there is something to be said about starting young and having that discipline where you go no matter what, I’m not going to give up. If I have to eat Ramen (laughs) or my cell phone shuts off, because I don’t have enough money, I’m still gonna go to that dance class and audition. It’s that drive.

Can you repeat that phrase “dancing in Brockton?” Isn’t it usually boxing?

KW: Absolutely. You guys are all from here or have been here long enough to know that it’s a tough guy city and ballet isn’t usually in that category (laughs). But the first time I saw Footloose I was 10, I was getting made fun of at school, kids were calling me sissy and a bunch of other names I won’t say. But then I saw Kevin Bacon dancing and he was masculine. It was powerful, it was on film, and it was something I had never seen before. I knew Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, but this was some new thing and it inspired me to say, “Screw you! He’s doing it, he looks cool, he’s a tough guy, and he’s not a sissy.” So movies like that really inspired me to try and forget what they were saying. Every time I went to the dance studio, I wouldn’t be thinking about what the kids were saying.

It must’ve been a pretty good guy to girl ratio too.

KW: Exactly (laughs). The guy to girl ratio. “Yeah, you can go shower with the guys after football, but I’m gonna go dancing with 40 girls!”

JH: That’s what kept my brother in dance class (laughs).

How does being a dancer first effect your acting at all, especially in something like this when it is all mixed together?

KW: I think dancing helps. Its sometimes has and hasn’t worked for dancers who converted or switched to acting. But I don’t think I am switching to anything. I’ve been dancing my whole life. You do musical theater as a kid and we’d have drama classes within my dance studios and do little exercises on camera so you get more comfortable on stage and performing – not just using your body but expressing emotion through your mouth and words and face. Dancing is just another form of expression.

JH: Like body language, you can do so much acting through not talking (laughs). Through your eyes, your posture, and we were so comfortable with our bodies. We worked with an acting coach before and he just showed us movies and talked to us. We never did line readings or anything. He was showing us James Dean running across the street –

KW: He has three speeds in his run.

JH: Yeah, that kind of stuff and we got that. That makes sense. Doing the stunts and falling, they had people to do that for us and we were like, “Dude, we know how to fall.” We can do triple turns and land down fine. So it definitely helps in action and just telling story.

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