Danielle Dances! (Week 2)

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone. It's Danielle Fischel, podcaster, TV director and mom of two, but forever known to most as Topanga from the nineties family sitcom Boy Meets World. Currently, though, I am competing on season thirty four of Dancing with the Stars as one half of Team Topasha, and I am having the time of my life, and throughout the journey, I'm going to keep you updated in the form of this here podcast, Danielle with the Stars, all in hopes of being one of the chosen few who wins a Len Goodman Mirror Ball Trophy. So I have just completed the press line for week two's live show was one Hit Wonders Week. This week felt so different from the first week. That first week we had three full weeks of rehearsal, of getting to know each other, of getting to know the other contestants, of spending time with the song, which of course I was already such a fan of, you Know Stronger by Kelly Clarkson, but still knowing a song and having steps in your mind and choreography in your mind that you can count to having three weeks with it, you just really settle in and you feel comfortable, and even though my performance wasn't like you know, Tens, I felt really comfortable and confident. And then you do the live show at the end of week one and the next morning you're in and you're learning a totally different dance. And in this case you really only have about five days. You go from about three weeks of time rehearsing to having five days because you rehearse Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday is camera blocking. By the time you get to this stage and you are camera blocking and showing the cameras what you've got, not much is really going to change. Your performance can be adjusted. You can start amping things up on your face. You can remind yourself to put your shoulders down, which apparently I am not doing enough. You know, you can make little tweaks, but like you better be pretty locked in by the time you get to Monday. On Saturday night, I left rehearsal four hours of straight rehearsal, and I called Jensen and I said, I am so far from where I want to be with this dance. I don't feel comfortable, I'm making mistakes, I'm not able to perform because I'm so in my head about the steps, and there's just things that Pasha is saying to me that I want to understand that like I see him do them, and I'm like, yes, that looks nice and well done, and I just try to replicate it and I can't, and I was so nervous. I was like, this is Saturday night. I have to be ready to perform basically by Monday morning, and I'm nowhere near it. And then I went home. I did all my self care, body care stuff, icing, heating, EPSOM, salt bath, cold plunge, heating again, sleeping with my foot, elevated all the stuff I'm having to do. And I woke up on Sunday and I showed up at rehearsal, and I swear overnight my brain just absorbed all of the things Pasha had said to me the day before, all of the notes I wanted to give myself about straightening my leg and what I wanted to do with my energy through my fingertips and making sure my hips were moving and pulling my toes back through my shoes and all the things that I didn't feel like I was doing on Saturday I was now doing on Sunday. And the difference between how I felt Saturday night and how I felt Sunday night was Likeday night, I was like, I'm at about ninety percent, and that on Saturday I was like at twenty. So it's pretty crazy, how just thinking about something giving your brain a break and sleeping if you just you know, if you just trust the process. I've been saying trust the Pasha, and Pasha now says trust the process. So he really said that that is exactly how it works. That when you only have five days to learn a dance by Saturday, you're not going to feel confident. And he said you may not ever feel confident again the way you did the first week because you just had more time with it. And so nobody really ever goes out there after week one and is like, yeah, I'm one hundred percent. I know what I'm supposed to be doing. So it's very it's thrilling, it's kind of a roller coaster. You have to be a bit of an adrenaline junkie to handle it. I man, I get out there though, and the live studio audience just feeds my soul. I feel exactly like I did doing Boy Meets World back in the nineties, exactly like I did doing Girl Meets World. You just the audience is there. You know you're there to entertain them. You know they're there, You're there to make them have a great time, and I just love it so much. With that said, it's great that I can give a good performance on show night, but I know that for Pasha. He explained this really well to me because I kept saying, why do I have to give one hundred percent five times before the live show? I do camera blocking three times. You want one hundred percent for all three of those. Then on the actual tape day, we do two more rehearsals in the morning. You want one hundred percent for those. Then we do a dress rehearsal. You want one hundred percent of those. That's six full times of going a hundred percent in your routine before you do it live for the studio audience and millions of people watching on TV. As an actor from the time I was ten years old, we never give one hundred percent until you're rolling. That's something you save because once you really deliver something, you can't recapture it. You can't do it again. So I really just one day when he was asking me to really be going out, full out. In rehearsal, I said, I'm just can you explain it to me? Because I want to do it for you, but it's going against thirty years of training for me. Can you explain to me why you want it a full out? And he said, unlike with acting, when you fully commit and you fully perform, and you turn it on and there's a brightness to you and you've got an energy, everything about your physical body also changes. You spin into me faster, you hit lines differently, And he as a person who's guiding me and coaching me through the dance, He's like, if I need to whip you into a turn in order to give you speed, I will do that, but if I don't need to, and I think I need to because during rehearsal you needed me to, but now in the live show you don't. If I go to whip you into a turn, I could actually screw up the dance or I could make you look bad, and that's never what I want to do. And I was like, right, our physical bodies are relying on each other to communicate for the entire minute, and it's not like that in acting. Obviously, in acting, I give you a reaction or a response, and you just have to respond to it, and as long as it's natural, you're accomplishing the goal. So hearing him say that made perfectly good sense to me. It's still very difficult for me to do. I want to get better at it because I know that it's important to him, and I'm just I'm struggling with it. I don't you know, there is there. It is not even something I can plan for. I can think I'm turning it on, but then when there's a crowd there, it's just totally different energy. So I don't know. I absolutely love it, and I forgot how much I loved it, to be honest. We had two eliminations tonight, double elimination, which made the competition aspect of this feel very real. Up until this point, it has just felt like we were all on a journey to dance our hearts out every week and to be there celebrating each other and supporting each other. We said goodbye to Corey Feldman and his partner Jenna Johnson, and we said goodbye to Baron Davis and his partner Britt Stewart. I am very, in particular, very sad to see Baron go. Baron and I have become very close. We're close in age. I know how hard he's working, I know how badly he wanted to perform the way he wanted to for brit and it's hard. It's hard to say goodbye to people. It just felt very real tonight, and we Pasha and I were the first names to be called as being safe, which was obviously such a relief. But then I had to stand back there and wait and see who was gone. And I ran out the second I could and gave Baron a big hug, and I told him he's stuck with me because he made the terrible mistake of giving me his phone number, and so now he's stuck with me. So I'm sad about him, especially being gone. I did the Cha Cha tonight. It was a total departure from Week one with the tango week one, even though I didn't do the tango super intense, it is a more intense dance. But I figured Week one was my opportunity to show a little bit of my personality and who I am to America, and so there may have been bigger smiles than you would normally see during a tango, but I was honestly just having so much fun. I could barely contain it. This cha cha this week, Pasha was like, let's show a completely different side of your personality. Let's turn the sexy meter up, let's turn the flirty meter up, and let's just really go for it. I can definitely say it has been a long time since I have ever done something like that. But it was really fun. And you know, I have always been a person who's believed that like age isn't anything but a number and all of that. But like when it's you, sometimes it feels different. Like I can look at other people and be like, yes, you go, queen, like I can be that person. But when it's me, I'm like, oh, come on, you know, you got two small kids and you're in your mid forties, like settle down. But then I got out there and I actually felt really good about myself. I felt really good. It helps that, you know, the wardrobe here is amazing. We actually completely changed my dress right before the live show. So this is my public apology to Daniella, the wardrobe master. Daniella wanted to design this dress exactly like this with these straps. She said, your promo dress was a halter this. I want to feel more clubby. I want to have these straps. And I was like, yeah, that sounds great, and then I slept on it and I woke up the next day and I was like, you know, the dance is really sexy. I think a halter neckline is sexier. I want to do a halter, And so I texted her. I said, I've been thinking about it and I really want to do a halter. She was like, okay. I really liked the first idea of us doing the straps and making it more clubby, and I was like, let's go halter, and she said, okay, you got it. Then they made it a halter, and then they had to rhinestone it and fringe it, and the dress legitimately weighs seven to ten pounds more than it did without all that stuff on there, and with the fringe and all of that, the tiny little halter straps made the dress not fit well. Even though it fit perfectly in the fitting, it did not fit well tonight and we did our dress rehearsal and the dress felt like it was hanging on me. It felt very unsexy. I did the first dip that we do and When I came up, the double sided tape they had put to keep my dress down above my bra was just out. My braw was showing, and I was like, oh no, no, no, this is not going to work. And so after dress rehearsal, I took my dress off and I said, can you guys, I need this thing yanked up about three inches and it came back with the straps that she originally wanted to do. It also came back with some more rhinestones on the mesh. The dress originally didn't have any of these rhinestones. It's so much prettier with the rhinestones. But literally they changed the straps and the entire dress changed. And so I just want you guys to know that they know what they're doing and I should keep my mouth shut so I will not be making that mistake again and I will be apologized to Danielle tomorrow morning. Overall, I think the dance tonight went very well. I did not have great dress rehearsals, unlike last week where my dress rehearsals went pretty well. My main dress rehearsal, I guess I should say rehearsals went pretty well, and then the dress rehearsal last week did not go great, but I thought the overall performance went well. This week, I did not have a single rehearsal that felt like they're nailed all of those, And then tonight, other than that last little sneaky trick, it felt like most of the things I wanted to do I did. I feel really good about it. I Also, I think the thing I'm the most proud of tonight is that Pasha and I did have that little slip up with the last trick. We watched the tape back to see what happened, and I released his hip too early, like I'm holding onto him with my arm while he's reaching for my other arm, and I let go to early, so I was on the floor and we just missed the handkin. So that's what happened. Of course, it was my fault. And when I came into this, I said, I really just wanted to give myself more grace. I'm you guys have heard me talk about being a perfectionist, and I really just wanted to have more fun. Honestly, even after it happened, I just laughed. It was just so funny and like the dance had gone so well and then for that to kind of be the last moment, and the way Pasha was like determined to get me out between his legs, it was like he was shoving a baby deer out of like he was birthing a fawn. It was just so funny. And then immediately we walked off and we just started making memes, just meme after meme after meme. You guys are gonna be sick of the memes. I love making them. I woke up before this morning and started making the memes and so we've already been hard at work with the rest of them for tonight because they make me laugh. My body now that the adrenaline is out of my system, my body is very achy. So last week, during the tango, I was supposed to drop into a lunge at the very end of the dance, and I did it a bunch of times, but my quad got tired from all the squatting, like all that, you know, squatting down, squating down, squatting down, and so without realizing it, in order to give my quad a break, I started sliding with my back foot my left foot. I started sliding into the lunge so that my right leg could just drop down, my left leg would slide, but then in order to not go into a split, I'd have to use my right foot to grip the ground and therefore my hamstring to grip the ground really tight so that I wouldn't go into a split. And in that process, I snapped attendant in my hamstring. I did not know that I snapped attendant. I just thought, ow, that hurts. And then I left rehearsal and I said, you know what, you know what I need. Everyone keeps telling me to take care of myself. I need a deep tissue massage so that this sore hamstring feels better in the next couple of days. So I went and had a ninety minute deep tissue massage where someone used their elbow into my torn hamstring. It was not comfortable in the moment, but I thought, but it'll feel better later. And then, unbeknownst to me, the medication that I am on for my cancer, meds to moxifin, can increase bruising and slow healing. So I had the ninety minute deep tissue massage. I also then had like a shockwave therapy called a piazzo, which went really deep. Again, not knowing that my tomoxofin would make me bruise, and within forty eight hours, I had every single capillary from my upper inner thigh all the way down to my calf had burst and it looked awful. The swelling got really bad, and I was it was just kind of a mess. And I was still rehearsing four hours a day, and I was now in hyperbaric oxygen, and I was in cryotherapy and I was cold plunging, and I was doing all of the things just trying to bring down the inflammation. I went for an MRI, and the MRI determined that I had a pretty severe tear, and the radiologist who read the MRI actually said I was definitely going to need surgery. And I kind of panicked because the idea that anything was going to take me out of this competition other than just not having the votes was like just I couldn't even I couldn't even fathom that I would have to drop out. I was like, m mmm, they can take me out on a stretcher. Otherwise, no way I'm sticking around. So I met with an orthopedic surgeon who deals with a lot of athletes, because girls an athlete. Now I don't know if you know that, but I'm your girl. I'm an athlete. So I met with an orthopedic surgeon who works with a lot of athletes, and he thankfully reviewed all of my images and said, zero percent, I'm going to recommend surgery. There's just no reason you need to have surgery. With that said, the only way you're going to start to feel better is with rest. And he said, but I understand that you want to stay in this competition that you are having the time of your life. And when athletes snap these tendons, and we you know they're in the playoffs, we treat them like they're in the playoffs. So we're going to manage your pain. We're going to make sure you get into c apt two to three times a week. We're going to do all of that. So I am considering this Dancing with the Stars playoffs and I'm doing everything I possibly can in order to stay healthy and to stay well, and that as long as you guys continue to vote for me, I'm going to be here. I am not letting this stop me. So that's where we're at with the injury. And yeah, I did the cartwheel into splits. Uh, Pasha asked me during week one. He was like, can you do a cartwheel? And I said, well, I used to be able to do a cartwheel. And I thought to myself, when was the last time we did a cartwheel? And I was like, I was probably eight, like eight years old. I did gymnastics for a couple of years before I started acting at ten, so I knew that I used to know how to do a cartwheel. And I just blindly said, yeah, if I could do it at eight, I could do it at forty four. Why not. I said, yes, I sure can. And he said, great, could you do a cartweell with your left hand? And I said, you know what's funny. I can only do a cartwheel with my left hand. Have you ever tried to do a carwell both ways? For some reason, I can't do it both ways, but I can do one with my left hand. So I practiced that. I felt pretty confident. And then he was like, how about the splits, And again I was like, I could when I was eight. Man, if I could do it when I was eight, I could do it when I was forty four. So I started working on that. Thankfully, it needed to be a left handed cartwheel and it needed to be a left legged split because let me tell you, whichever leg is in front when you do that splits, that's the one where your hamstring is taught. And so it would have been zero out of a hundred that I could have done a right legged split, but I was able to do a left legged split because of my injury. We took it real easy with the cartwheel because that does definitely use my hamstring. We took it easy with the cartwheel all week and then today, right down to the last second, Pasha was like, Danielle, it's four counts. I can change it if you don't want to do it. I said, no, I want to do it, and I did one, and I was like, I feel great. I think I've got this. Next week we are dancing a fox trot, which is not going to have any splits or any cartwheels. It's still going to be wonderful and we're going to find ways to make it really fun. But I'm going to consider it a break for my right hamstring and I'm going to let it heal everyone this week, going into week two, was was pretty stressed. You could see it on all of our faces. We'd run into each other in the halls, and we'd say how's it going, and everyone be like it's okay, it's okay. You know, first week everyone was like how's it going? It was like great, we feel great. Isn't this amazing? And second week everyone's just like okay, yeah, yeah, this came up real quick, even Robert, who you know. I saw him leaving his rehearsal. I mean, gosh, that guy is a charmer, is he not? I just love him so much. I saw him leaving camera blocking last night and I said how did it go? And I was expecting that he was just gonna be like, great, we nailed it, and he was like, you know what, it was okay, I feel like it could have been better. There's just some things I'm not nailing. And we talked it out. We talked out. You know how much when you sleep, it settles in, and we talked about what he was going to go home and do, and you know, sure enough, he just came out and absolutely killed it. Again. I don't think there's anything I can't do. And he's also does every single thing with a smile on his face, and he is a true gem of a human being. I love him forever. We had one hit Wonders Week, our song Rhythm of the Night. I absolutely love. I've been a fan, I truly when I hear it, I think of the year nineteen ninety four. I had been on Boy Meets World for you know, a little less than a year. My mom and I would drive back and forth from Calabassis to Burbank and it would come on the radio and we'd sing it at the top of our lungs. It was really fun. And Pasha's choreography is just so great. Like there's that part in our song where it says like round and round we go, and that's the part where I'm doing this rolling of the arm, like all those spins in and out. And last week when the lyric was you know when it makes you taller, and I was rising up off the ground. Like his choreography's just so smart, and I love seeing what he comes up with every week. So I'm really excited about next week because it's TikTok week. We have been trying to kill the social media game. Leg actually put a damper on some of our social media stuff because both of us were just so worried about my leg and all of the doctor's appointments that I needed to have and all of the healthcare stuff that I needed to do. So we had we we kind of took a little bit of a pause on some of the social media, but we are mac baby, uh and I've already been meming the little mistake. So you guys are you. Guys are in for you guys are in for a treat over the next couple of days. Tonight I had my aunt, my uncle, my brother, my mom in the audience, and then I had my friends. I had Jody Sweeten, Andrea Barber, Elisa Donovan, my friend Jen, Jody, Andrea and Elisa. You know been acting. We've all been acting since we were kids. We are a family bonded by the unique experience being an actor period, much less a child actor, much less a child actor in the nineties. It's just such a unique small group of people who know what that experience is. Like the fact that we are there for each other, supporting each other, it just means the world. And to see them cheering for me, I heard them yelling my name. And then after when I made it up to the skybox to talk to Julianne and get our scores, I look down at them. They all waved at me like it's just such a beautiful, supportive, wonderful place. And I in some ways kick myself that I waited this long to do it, and in other ways, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. This is the perfect year for me to do it, and I'm so, so so happy that I said yes this year. So jewels and watches for tonight. As you guys have gotten to know me, you know I love my jewels. So my very good friend Dolly, she's on Instagram at XO the Biju Box. She is an absolute e expert at all things bling. Just incredible. She's been doing it for years. It's actually her side hustle. She's got like a normal full time job. She is a total bat. She's incredible. She's a mom, she's a wife, she has two jobs. I look up to her in every single way. She heard that I was wearing pink for this week, and she let me borrow this stunner. It's absolutely incredible. It is light pink. It's probably got a Dolly cup under it. That's what she calls. It helps bring out the color in the stone. It's got a gorgeous halo. I love the shank over here. I think this is from her personal collection, not for sale. If it was, I'd try to buy it. I'm also borrowing this choker from her. I saw her post this the other day and I was like, do I need that diamond choker? She was like, let me bring it to you, girl. So she delivered me jewelry outside the rehearsal space and I had her meet me in the park and then I hopped in her car and we drove around the block and it felt like a real I don't know what. I don't know what it felt like, but it was weird and I was like, I just walked away with a bunch of jewels. She dropped me back off at the rehearsal space and I was like, that was a clandestine A little gathering there. Felt funny, but boy, totally worth it. Also, my dear bestie Jamie at Forever Fine Jewelry, you've heard me talk about her. She let me borrow this bracelet. Look at the mixed shapes, emeralds, ovals, pears, I mean, just truly an incredible bracelet. So I got to wear this, and then also this ring that she designed that I absolutely love. This is not Yo Mama's rings, not Jo Mama's cocktail ring. It's just absolutely phenomenal. And then I am wearing a Rolex date just that is two tone rose gold, two tone. It's a thirty one millimeter And I wanted to wear this watch tonight because it's the very first watch, like expensive watch that I bought as a gift to myself. And I did it when I directed my very first episode of television ever, which was an episode of Girl Meets World. And I like it when my jewelry and the things that I spend money on are attached to a story. And I knew the minute I directed my first episode of Girl Meets World that it was something I was going to want to do for maybe the rest of my life. And I thought, I want to commemorate this occasion by buying myself something nice that every time I look at it, I'll remind myself of this accomplishment. And Dancing with the Stars has felt very much the same way that, like, I'm really proud of all of us. We're working very very hard, and I just thought, you know, I want to look down and remember that girl meets world accomplishment of directing, and I want to remember it. On Week two, when there was a real elimination up for grabs, I don't know why I would say grabs that means you want it so an elimination that they were going to torture us with. So glad that I'm safe for tonight. So next week, Week three, TikTok week, I'm thrilled your girls doing a real great song. I don't even I don't know you guys probably aren'ty now, but I just so excited one of my besties I get to do a song. I'm so excited. Okay, Later this week I am going to be sitting down with one of the most celebrated choreographers in the history of dance. It is Mandy Moore, whose credits include So You Think you Can Dance, La La Land, Circa Solet, Taylor Swift's Era's Tour, and a little show called Dancing with the Stars. She's an eight time Emmy nominee, three time winner, and an absolute legend who will be telling us her opinions on season thirty four. So far, I cannot wait. This season feels stacked. I just I hmmm, I really I do. Every week it's going to get harder and harder and harder. And you know, I think one thing I would say that I need to start taking very seriously is that this is the second week in a row Bruno has mentioned my shoulders and I just naturally, I mean, I'm sitting here like this like I just I'm I'm not a shoulder down person. I'm a shoulder up a little weirdo. So I need to work on that because as we get further into the season, it's going to come down to those types of things, like you can't rely on having all the audience votes and you have to you have like the judges need to see you getting better every week, and I want to get better every week. So next week we are doing a foxtrot and it is very elegant and very graceful, which was not my nickname in high school. And so I'm just gonna have to dig deep and keep those shoulders down. And my number one goal before the week has even started is I want Bruno to say you listened to my note. That's all I want. That's what I want next week. I don't care what the scores are I just want Bruno to see that I kept my shoulders down, so you best believe I will be wearing a posture corrector. I'm gonna bust my booty to make that happen. Thank you, guys for listening to this episode of Danielle with the Stars. It has been my absolute pleasure to share this experience with you. Thank you for tuning in every week. Thank you for your votes, thank you for all your support, thank you for your messages. It really means the world to both Pasha and me, So thank you. Bye. Danielle with the Stars Produced and hosted by Danielle Fischl. Executive producers Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, Producer, editor and engineer Tara Sudbosch. Theme song by Justin Ce. Follow us on Instagram at Danielle Woodstars and vote for me