Karina Smirnoff Interviewed About This Week’s Theme For DWTS, Maks Chmerkovskiy, And More

TV Guide has a new interview posted with Karina Smirnoff. She goes over last week’s dances on Dancing With The Stars and why the judges hold Corbin to a higher standard. Below she talks of this week’s theme and dances, how she feels going into the semi-finals, and how she feels about Maks being a guest judge.

What can you tell us about this week’s theme?
Smirnoff: This week, they’re doing something really cool on the show. They have never done this before, and I really like this idea. Everybody does two individual dances, and the dances are to the same song. One is the original and the other one is a one is a stripped-down cover of the original.

Sounds cool! What do you and Corbin have planned?
Smirnoff: [The] first dance is the main story, and it’s quite passionate and dark and mysterious. And the second dance becomes the prequel to the first dance. The first dance is a traditional international tango, and the second one is a rumba. In the tango, we both have become creatures of darkness in a way, but he is like the mastermind of darkness and he obviously has dangerous agendas in his game plan. And I decide in the tango that I don’t want to be a part of that, but I can’t stop him anymore. So then in the rumba, it’s him finding me and seducing me to be part of his darkness, part of his world. It’s pretty awesome. I was telling Corbin, our dances remind me of little movies. It’s so exciting and entertaining and creative. I love it. I love every second of it.

How do you feel you’re positioned going into the semifinals?
Smirnoff: We were talking about it yesterday, and the last four eliminations were relatively shocking to me. They were the strongest dancers [who] went out, so that’s not the best sign for us, because we do tend to be closer to the top of the leader board. … So, we are nervous about Monday, but at the end of the day this is something that we can’t control. And our main goal is to make sure that we come up with routines that are exciting and entertaining, and hopefully the audience will love it and vote us into the final. That’s the only thing that we can control, and we’re going to work hard on that. Everything else, whether we worry or not about it, there’s nothing we can do.

What do you think about Maks coming back to guest-judge?
Smirnoff: I think it’s actually going to be a lot of fun. Maks is known to not be friends with a filter. … I think he will say it as it is. It won’t be the typical response that we might be accustomed to hearing … so I’m kind of looking forward to that. And he’s an active dancer, so he literally went off the dance floor in Dancing with the Stars and now is going to judge, so he has a fresh perspective of being on both sides of the coin. I think it’ll be interesting. I’m kind of excited to see him go at it with Len or Carrie Ann or any one of them.

Interesting perspective on Maks and I’d like to see him go at it with Len and Carrie Ann too. More at TV Guide.

ETA: Karina has posted her new blog at People.com. Not only that, there is a rehearsal teaser VIDEO with she and Corbin as well. Be sure to see everything at the link. Below are her thoughts about Maks…

I don’t think having Maks [Chmerkovskiy] guest judge this week is going to be any more weird or less weird than having any other people guest judge. On the contrary, I think it will be interesting because he comes from being in our shoes. He comes from knowing what we need to do. Maks is known to have no filter, so I’m quite looking forward to what he has to say.

I think if he wants to be a fair judge and do a great job, he has to be fair. At this point, he has no agenda. His brother isn’t in the cast anymore. I can’t imagine him being subjective. If I were to judge, I would have to be objective, simply for the fact that I know how much work we all put in every single week. Out of respect for that, it only would be fair for the judging to be fair.

ETA2: Corbin Bleu has written his new blog for People.com. Below is what he writes and he and Karina’s new dances. More at the link on Maks as a guest judge.

Our first dance, a rumba, is a very stripped down version of the other dance. It’s slow and melodic and a completely different song. Our dances are connected, story-wise. I play a dark and sinister villain – very devil-like almost. I end up seducing Karina in the rumba and she’s very reluctant. And by the end, she gives in. I take her as my queen of darkness. That’s our prequel.

Then we have our tango, which is Karina as my queen. She’s now trying to get away from me. She decides she doesn’t want to be a part of this darkness anymore. I am obviously not having any of it, and there’s this very epic battle of fire. We’re going to have fire everywhere. We’ll have fire all over the stage, and at the end, I pretty much set the entire ballroom on fire. It’s really dark and twisted. I’m in love with it.