She had two Emmy nominations for her choreography on Dancing with the Stars and was a two-time winner on the dance-reality show. She appeared in last year’s remake of ‘Footloose’ and plays alongside Tom Cruise in Adam Shankman’s new film adaptation of the Broadway musical ‘Rock of Ages.’ Now, Julianne Hough, as it’s she we are talking about, sits down for a chat with Interview magazine and dishes on growing up a Mormon, moving to Los Angeles, working with Tom Cruise, her career and wanting to be taken seriously as an actor.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but when Dancing with the Stars first asked me to be on the show, I said no, because I wanted to act and to be taken seriously. And I thought that being on a reality show would hurt my credibility. But what I’ve come to realize is that being on that show completely launched my career and gave me a family and a built-in audience,” Julianne says.
She then add that, “My biggest fear is that people think, Oh, just because she was on Dancing with the Stars, she thinks she can act now. But I’ve been acting my whole life, which people don’t realize. I just haven’t had the opportunities that I’ve had with my dancing.”
Julianne was born in a place called Sandy, Utah. Speaking about growing up Mormon, the 23-year-old actress and singer confesses that, “The thing that I loved about growing up Mormon is that I had morals and standards instilled in me as a kid—like, you need to be a nice person, and a thoughtful person, and if anybody is trying to dog that, then I think that’s rude. It’s, like, don’t you want to raise your kids with that kind of mentality? I mean, I may not be as active in it as some people are, but I think that the church has taught me great life lessons.”
Speaking about working with Tom Cruise in ‘Rock of Ages’, Julianne Hough told Interview that, “I think my generation will always look at him as Tom Cruise, the movie star. But the thing about Tom is that he’s super-cool, and whatever nerves I had going into a scene with him, afterwards he would say how funny it was or what a great job I did. So that really made me feel confident. But at the same time, my first scene with him was when my character, Sherrie, meets him for the first time and he says that she has a perky heart as he’s grabbing her chest, so that was definitely pretty real.”
As on her boyfriend, Ryan Seacrest, getting jealous on some of her scenes in the movie, the actress admits that, “He was like, ‘Wow, this is a little sexy!’ There was one scene we did that ended up not making it into the film, but it was a really great dance-and-vocal number — ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane.’ It was in the strip club, and I gave Tom a lap dance in the scene. The movie flowed better without it, so I understand why it got edited out, but at the same time, I’m like, “Wait a minute. I got to do that, and it’s not even in the movie?”
The lovely actress also dishes on celebrity and living in a world in which so many people are striving to be successful and how this can affect your relationships.
“Yeah, I think there are always gonna be challenges and people throwing themselves at you in a nondiscreet way. But it’s just so public now that you have to be careful saying hi or giving somebody a hug, because then somebody will turn it into something else. So I think you’re always a lot more careful. I started out in a relationship with a guy who wasn’t in the business, and there was definitely a resentment thing that kind of happened. In the end we figured we were probably better off apart. As far as my relationship with Ryan goes, we’ve been really aware of these issues, and we work really hard at maintaining it,” Julianne says.
More from Julianne Hough in the June/July 2020 issue of Interview Magazine.
Photos courtesy of Interview Magazine