DWTS2014 James Maslow Writes On His Good Luck Charm, Receiving Perfect Scores, And More

James Maslow tells Parade that Hanna was his “good luck charm” this past week on Dancing With The Stars. Wasn’t she a doll? Below is more and how he’s feeling after receiving four 10’s this week.

I think Hannah’s my good luck charm! That was the first time I got 40, so I might need to fly her back out if I don’t keep my scores up. Getting the first perfect score of the season was pretty surreal. It’s not something I expected, but I was very happy with the performance and to look up and see all tens was amazing.

Peta and I really stepped it up with this dance, and we were aggressive in some of the lifts and the physical things we wanted to accomplish. Honestly, we never had the dance run 100 percent correctly before that performance, so we were very nervous going into it. I was thinking we were either going to get everything and pull the lifts off and it would be a really high score, or we were going to slip and she was going to fall and it was going to be a low score.’

I’m glad I’m with Peta throughout this competition, we have a great camaraderie and we work well together. This piece was the first time I was really able to contribute with ideas and movements because it wasn’t really a ballroom dance and it felt more natural, more comfortable for my body.

The most challenging part of that routine was that last lift. We had originally started with something that was far simpler and easier. It still looked good, but we wanted to challenge ourselves. Nobody has ever done that lift except for pro dancer Tony Dovolani, but in all 18 seasons no celebrity has ever done it. He came in and showed us that lift and said ‘hey, go ahead, use it, try it. Nobody’s ever done it because it’s so hard.’ We took that as a challenge and said ‘let’s go for it, go big or go home.’ We were able to make it look easy when we got it, but trust me, we don’t get that every single time.

More at Parade.