Executive Producer Rob Wade Interviewed On The New Cast Of Dancing With The Stars And More

Give it up to Dancing With The Stars Executive Producer Rob Wade! I can’t commend him enough for the cast he’s put together and all the changes and surprises we saw last night!!! It really feels as if he is listening to us (ie: choosing Allison Holker to dance, bringing Sharna Burgess and Gleb Savchenko back, and more). Below is a new interview with The Wrap for where he talks all about it. More at the link for why he chose Julianne Hough as a 4th judge, how there will be more guest judges, and more!

The Wrap: Have you met your expectations on the cast?
Rob Wade: What’s great is we have a real diverse cast. Nineteen seasons in, we’re still able to find people from different backgrounds and different types of celebrity. We have Bethany Mota, a YouTube star. We’ve never had that before. Also, NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip, we’ve never had that before and it really opens the show up to others. We have young. We have old. We have some really good dancers, as well. I’m excited by it.


How much does the craziness of the show’s casting rumors affect your decisions? Do you take a temperature on it?

I wouldn’t say we take a temperature on it, no. We definitely listen to people’s ideas and hear what people have to say. Casting the show goes beyond β€˜Is that a good name?’ You have to think of the cast as a family and you need different aspects for the cast. It can’t be one note.

We’re the only show out there at the moment that’s genuinely a family show. You can watch this with your grandchildren, your aunt, your grandfather, your father. There’s something in this show for everyone. So, obviously, not everyone is going to please everyone. If they did, we did something wrong. Everybody in the family has to have someone to cheer on.

Fans seem to miss having a results show. How do you handle the loss of that?
No individual one thing is bigger than the show as a whole. It’s just a great format. It gives us great ability to do different things. We have got two results shows for the first two weeks this season, which is great. There’s a lot of entertaining and interesting stuff in there.

But then again when we do get to one day a week, the great thing about that is that you make it an event once a week. Both things are good. You have to adapt and use change for your advantage.