Entertainment
See the first couple shots of the ‘Dancing With the Stars’ season 33 duos
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/FTVP-Dancing-With-the-Stars-TOUT-090524-02-d86d40a381384db688abc07701714ef1.jpg "See the first couple shots of the ‘Dancing With the Stars’ season 33 duos")
ABC is ready to light up the ballroom once more with a new cast of celebrity contestants — and Entertainment Weekly has your first look at the couples (celebrity and professional dancers) together.
Season 33 promises to be another unpredictable round of cha-cha-chas, jives, waltzes, foxtrots, and more. Though, if nothing else, it’s the first season without any major changes in several years. Since 2020, Dancing With the Stars eliminated their in-house audience, brought them back, hired two new hosts, lost a judge, and left ABC for Disney+ only to return to the mothership network.
This year, it’ll only be the contestants making headlines, for a change. “What we hit last season was a really good groove,” executive producer Conrad Green tells EW. “Alfonso [Ribeiro] and Julianne [Hough] are incredible. Our judging panel was really tight and not replacing Len [Goodman] allows us a bit more room to play and bring other people in. And the way that ABC, Disney+, and Hulu all broadcast the show feels like we’re really connected to all the audiences who watch. We’re plugged into the 21st century fully.”
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That also means they’ll get to shake things up a bit more in the ballroom, directing their energy towards throwing “new curve balls toward celebrities,” Green says, rather than switching up judges, hosts, or platforms. “It’s very much evolution rather than revolution,” he adds. “We’ve got some new things planned along the way, but essentially we want to make it the show that so many people have watched across generations.”
Beyond the return of fan favorites like Disney Night and Halloween, Green won’t reveal any other theme nights planned for this year — in part because they’re still working to finalize them. He promise some intense face-offs, saying, “There’s going to be some rounds of competition that are going to be the most demanding we’ve ever done later in the run. We’re trying to tell the story of dance and music in America through a lot of different views. Sometimes it might be through movies, sometimes it might be through music, sometimes it might be through TV shows, as well as through artists and those kind of things.”
If you’re ready to meet the couples, read on for more from Green on what to expect.
Danny Amendola and Witney Carson
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Danny Amendola isn’t the first football player to swap the gridiron for the dance floor, but past NFL stars had varying degrees of success. “He’s never danced,” Green says of the former wide receiver, “but he’s still got that competitive fire.” Also, not for nothing, “he’s not a bad looking dude, so he’s got a helluva lot of cards to play,” Green adds. “And paired with Witney, they’re going to be dynamite together. She was delighted when she met him because she’s like, ‘He might not have dance experience, but what he’s got is an athlete’s mentality, a willingness to learn, and a passion to do as well as he can.'”
Anna Delvey and Ezra Sosa
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Dancing With the Stars is no stranger to controversial contestants (Sean Spicer, Olivia Jade, etc.), but Anna Delvey is the first to wear an ankle monitor while competing. Delvey, a.k.a. Anna Sorokin, is a notorious fake heiress and con artist who green says “caught the imagination of America.” (You have watched Inventing Anna, right?) She is still currently on home arrest but received special dispensation to participate on the show. “We got permission for her to come and travel to Los Angeles to do the show,” Green explains. “Once you’ve done your time, you’re encouraged to go out and take legitimate work. The authorities don’t want to stop people being able to work. So this is a legitimate job, and Anna’s going to have a lot of fun doing it.”
Joey Graziadei and Jenna Johnson
Andrew Eccles/Disney
The Bachelor franchise enjoyed a fair degree of synchronicity with Dancing With the Stars the last few years, and this season brings both a former bachelor and bachelorette to the ballroom. “Joey just felt right,” Green says of Graziadei. “He won so many people over on the show. I think he’ll be really good, as well. He just felt so charismatic and warm, and that’s what people key into on the show. You pick your horses and you get to know people and you want to follow them and you want to see them flourish. He’s a natural for us, to be honest.”
Dwight Howard and Daniella Karagach
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Daniella already proved to audiences that she has quite the bag of tricks when it comes to using an NBA player’s height to their advantage. She won the Mirrorball in only her second season with Iman Shumpert, but Howard is about to take her to new heights. “She’s got a history, which is good, but Dwight is 4 inches taller than Iman,” Green reveals. “He’s like 6′ 10″ or something. Obviously, that’s not an advantage in this show, but he’s very well proportioned and still very athletic. You couldn’t pick someone better than Dani to work with someone tall because she’s done it before and she’s made it work.”
Chandler Kinney and Brandon Armstrong
Andrew Eccles/Disney
There’s always at least one younger celebrity to help draw the youth vote, and this year’s honors go to Pretty Little Liars star Chandler Kinney. Kinney originally danced when she was a kid before segueing into acting, but Green insists the dance “was always her first love.” He says, “For her, this has been a little passion project. She has always watched the show with her family and thought, ‘God, wouldn’t it be amazing to be there?’ She’s so busy on so many different shows that this is almost like a break. When you’re her age, the physical side of this doesn’t bother you in the way it does for some other people. Her and Brandon look amazing together. They just look so healthy. It’s kind of sickening.”
Ilona Maher and Alan Bernsten
Andrew Eccles/Disney
In an Olympic year, Green believes they could’ve quite easily cast the whole season with just Olympians. They didn’t, but they at least secured two. First up is Ilona Maher, a bronze medalist as part of Team USA’s Rugby Sevens team for the 2024 Paris Games. Maher became a sensation on the internet for her funny, honest videos. “We had to really try to pick carefully and think, What can we do that feels new and different and exciting?” Green says. “We’ve never had a rugby player on the show before. We pick who we think America’s going to fall in love with. This is a next stage of their story where you can see a whole other realm [where] they can create great performances.” As for being paired with Alan, well, he was the tallest pro and Maher is an imposing pillar of strength.
Brooks Nader and Gleb Sevchenko
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Green predicts Brooks Nader “could be the dark horse” of the season. She is known best as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue model, a gig she got through a different kind of competition: winning the magazine’s Swim Search back in 2019. Green feels she has “all of the things you need to do really well on the show,” noting her “hilarious,” “warm,” and “dynamite personality.” He adds, “She looks like a million dollars, and with Gleb, that is the real genetic lottery win. They’re just astonishing together. We’ve probably got the best looking cast we’ve ever had. It is just ludicrous.”
Stephen Nedoroscik and Rylee Arnold
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Few people won over America this summer the way that Team USA gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, fondly known as “pommel horse guy,” did. So much so that he was the first cast member to be announced a few weeks ago. He also marks the show’s first ever male gymnast contestant. “He’s so charming ,and he’s really committed and into doing this,” Green says. “We’ve always found athletes particularly are very good on this show because they’re able to focus and knuckle down and take criticism without it emotionally affecting them in quite the same way.”
Phaedra Parks and Val Chmerkovskiy
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Of all the Real Housewives stars that took a turn around the ballroom, Phaedra Parks might be the most unique. “I don’t think there’s any other multi-hyphenates I’ve ever come across that are a reality show star, lawyer, and mortician,” Green quips. “We always like to tick off professions. She’s such an amazing personality. The last season we had Barry Williams on from The Brady Bunch, and it was such a revelation reminding ourselves that when someone has wanted to do the show for so long, there’s a special glow of excitement and fun for them. We really tried this season to make sure that everyone we get is super into it because I think the audience really root for people who are enjoying it as much as they would if they got the opportunity to do the show.”
Eric Roberts and Britt Stewart
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Actor and elder brother of Julia Roberts and father of Emma Roberts, Eric Roberts has been on producers’ radars since the very first season of the show. “Back in season 1 he really wanted to do it, but he was filming in China and he couldn’t get out for one day of filming,” Green explains. “He’s wanted to do it ever since. He’s one of the show’s biggest fans; he watches it with his wife all the time, he knows everything about the show. He’ll bring some of that elegance and charming gentleman to the show. It’s really nice to have different temperatures of people, and he will hopefully bring a really classy edge to the show and a dry sense of humor. He’s a very warm guy.”
Tori Spelling and Pasha Pashkov
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Tori Spelling, star of the original Beverly Hills, 90210 and daughter of television legend Aaron Spelling, is another celeb that DWTS circled for a while. “She is television royalty,” Green says. “We’ve asked her a number of times. and I don’t think it ever felt like the right time for her to do it. She always liked the idea of doing it, but nervous about doing it, as well. She decided this is the time to take a plunge. She’s going through some big things in her life, and for her, it’s, ‘Let’s embrace the change in life. Let’s take on things that are a bit scary.'”
Jenn Tran and Sasha Farber
Andrew Eccles/Disney
Tran was a surprise addition to the cast this morning, so EW didn’t get the chance to ask Green about her, but she might have the quickest turnaround of a Bachelorette star on the show ever. After a tearful and shocking Bachelorette finale in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, Tran boarded a plane to New York for the Good Morning America cast announcement on early Wednesday. “Last night, I was onstage crying, doing the whole breakup,” she told EW. “I get back to the dressing room and I basically get told I have 45 minutes to get on my flight. It was all just happening and thrown together very, very last minute.” In fact, she didn’t even meet partner Sasha Farber until she got to the airport.
Reginald VelJohnson and Emma Slater
Andrew Eccles/Disney
At 72 years old, Reginald VelJohnson is this year’s oldest contestant, but he’s honed a career playing guys counted out for that age, most memorably as LAPD Sergeant Al Powell in two Die Hard films. “He’s nervous,” Green says of VelJohnson being the senior celebrity this season. “He’s definitely a bit iffy about it, but at the same time, he’s embracing it. He did dance a lot when he was younger, and so he’s really into the idea of making the best show he can.” For those who loved VelJohnson in Die Hard or as police officer Carl Winslow on Family Matters, the second episode of the season, which will be movie themed, will have a nod to his career playing boys in blue. Unfortunately, “I can’t say more than that right now,” Green says.
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