DWTS Karina Smirnoff Interviewed About Her Life, Dancing, And Future Dreams

This is such a cool interview with Karina Smirnoff. Not sure when she did this (this past summer sometime?), but, they ask her some really good questions about her life, dancing career, and what she’d like to do in the future. Be sure to read the full interview and see a sweet picture of Karina to go with it at Newsday. It’s a great one! Jim will love this!

In your career, what do you think you’re going to do next and why?

I’m loving where my career is right now. I think it’s incredible to have an opportunity to perform on Broadway, which is the biggest and the best stage in the world, but I would love to continue and pursue acting more. I just did a movie like I said and it’s a different emotional release than dancing because now you have a dialogue and you have to become the character you’re playing. So I would love to get into acting more, but continue dancing. I think dancing will always be a part of me. When I’m 99 years old and have a walker, I’ll probably still do the cha-cha cha.

While you’re not dancing what do you do for fun?

I love reading. I don’t get enough time to read, but I have my Nook and every time I’m on a plane I pull it out. I love going to movies and doing normal stuff. Going to eat frozen yogurt, that we’ve been doing almost like twice a week while we’re in New York. I love playing with my godson, he’s 41/2 and super smart and super sweet and always keeps me on my toes. And just love spending time with my family because that’s what matters the most.

What’s your favorite style of dance?

It’s like what’s your favorite flavor. I love tango. I love tango because it’s a whole story. You have the beginning, the middle, the end in the dance that when you finish the tango you feel like you completed the whole story. I love fun dances. I love the salsa, cha-cha. On “DWTS” we get to do a lot of styles in one season especially if we go all the way to the end. We have 11 weeks of competition and halfway through we start with two dances. So as long as I love the music, I love the style.

Was it easy to make a transition from “DWTS” to Broadway?

It’s different. To be able to dance on TV you know like you have to think of camera angles and how it’s going to be viewed from television what people are going to see at home. So you always keep that in mind. On Broadway it’s live and you’re only interacting with one side. Because you have, like in the theater you have three sides, we call them blind because there’s no audience. The audience is only in front of you and even though you want to dance for them, it’s always better if you dance for yourself and maybe become part of that experience. And they connect with you a lot better that way. Is it difficult, yes because every single day you’re doing the same routine and it becomes almost like something that you just like a robot you kind of repeat, but you have to push that aside and find every single day find something new in the routine to make it special. Otherwise, you just go through motions. It is difficult but it is also extremely fulfilling because then after the shows over you go outside and you meet you fans. You meet people who come to the show and you get to interact with them and they tell you what they liked, what they loved.

Where was your first recital?

That was back in the Ukraine. My first recital that was a funny story. For some reason I invited my whole school to come and watch me do my very first dance recital, which was a huge mistake because I was so nervous back to your question. When I get to the stage and I see everybody there that I know staring at us, I get freaked out and I take my partner and I turn us around so now he’s facing the front and I’m facing the back. And then he sees everyone and he gets nervous so he takes and puts me in front. So instead of dancing for the whole dance, we were just switching places. It was not very good and we didn’t win for sure.

ETA: And below is Corbin and Karina on Access Hollywood this morning….