Everybody Cut Footloose!

Youthink chats with Julianne Hough about her starring role in the upcoming remake of Footloose.

“Excited is an understatement,” says Julianne Hough in a recent phone interview when I ask her how she’s feeling about her upcoming lead in the Footloose remake. “I’m so over the moon about this movie coming out… I can’t wait for people to see it.”

And she should be excited, as the hype for the release of Footloose has been huge. For those not in the know, Footloose is the tale of city boy Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald) from Boston who moves to the small town of Bomont where dancing and music have been banned after a tragic accident. As he gets to know the kids in the town, including rebellious Ariel Moore (Julianne Hough), he is integrated into the underground dance scene, makes new friends and starts a campaign to bring back dance to Bomont.

Julianne Hough, best known for her ballroom dancing skills on Dancing with the Stars, plays Ariel, the preacher’s daughter who was 14 when an accident killed five high-school seniors coming home from a dance, including her brother. And it is this tragedy that helps shapes Ariel’s character.

“She’s definitely got her hurt and her loss and she doesn’t get [the] attention that she needs from her dad, so she acts out in a way to get that attention,” says Hough. “It makes her look like a little bit of a hussy, or a little bit of a troublemaker, and really that’s just her way of dealing with the pain. So I think that she’s like a complex teenage girl, you know, like most teenage girls.”

Originally released in 1984, the 2011 remake is set in the present day and incorporates new music and new kinds of dance into the film, making it more relevant to today’s teens. So was Hough afraid the changes might be too much for die-hard fans of the original version?

“I think, you know, it’s a little daunting going into making a movie that’s so iconic, but I think that we did a really good job of keeping it true to the original and yet bringing so [many] current updates to the movie and making it obviously relatable to this generation.”

With rigorous five-day workweeks and a small amount of time to learn all the choreography, the stars of the film had to rely on their dance training and enthusiasm to get them through the long days. And luckily Hough and Wormald’s onscreen chemistry made things click quicker.

“[Kenny and I] had instant chemistry,” Hough gushes. “We met at an audition and we literally said hello and then we had to dance. So it was like no choreography, no nothing and they put the music on and we just started dancing together and there was this instant connection, like, ‘Oh, OK. We have this.’”

With a fresh new cast, updated moves and a hot soundtrack featuring artists like David Banner, Cee Lo Green and Blake Shelton, Footloose should be a hit with teen audiences. But if that doesn’t convince you to check out the movie, maybe Hough can:

“[Teens] are going to have a blast watching some of these dance scenes and there’s a lot of humour in it. And Kenny Wormald is a hottie, so I’m sure the girls won’t be too disappointed watching him onscreen.”

If you’d like to check out Hough and Wormald’s onscreen chemistry for yourself, Footloose opens in theatres on Friday, October 14th.