Julianne Hough: Cody Finally Focused

By Julianne Hough
Special to Fancast.com

Sorry to be late, but my day has been crazed, starting with the usual early morning interviews. Then I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel with Jesse McCartney and Jimmy Kimmel, and we announced the nominees for the American Music Awards. I was happy about the nominees for country. I’m really happy Brad Paisley got a nomination. I’m excited about Sugarland and Brooks and Dunn and Rascal Flatts. Rascal Flatts deserved to be on there for a lot of years, and I’m a label mate with Sugarland.

Also Taylor Swift is up for female artist, which is great. She skyrocketed in the last couple years. I’m going to send her a congratulatory text. I think Jordan Sparks was also nominated, which is awesome. I met Jordan in the bathroom at CBS when she was on American Idol and I was on the first season of Dancing. We tape in neighboring studios. It’s funny we got to know each other in the bathroom.

Anyway, about last night’s Dancing With The Stars. I thought Cody was awesome. It was cool to see the judges liked what he did. It was funny. Do you really think I came up with the idea of calling his school principal? It was definitely the show’s. But it worked! He focused a lot better. It’s like I can drag a horse to water, but I can’t make it drink. I can push him and try to make him focus, but in the end he has to do it. And I think this week he did it. I can tell he wants to break out of the middle of the pack and start getting further up the standings.

I thought it was great. I thought the scores were good. In general, I thought it was an interesting show last night. Cloris was amazing. She’s known for her crazy, quirky things, but she surprised everyone with her graceful movements, and she stepped into the character like nobody’s business.

She came off stage and asked me what I thought of her technique. She really cared, and it was cute.

A lot of people have said I’m pushing Cody harder than my other partners in the past and I’m treating him like he’s a little kid. But I kind of have to. Honestly, if I didn’t care I’d let him goof off because it’s taking double my energy just to get his attention. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t do it. But I totally care. I think he has a ton more potential than people are seeing, so I’m constantly saying, “Come on, Cody.”

That’s why I’m hard on him. I think he’s great. I’ve been really happy with him, and we’ve had a lot of fun. He’s brought out my fun side, too. We’ll be relaxed in rehearsal. I have to keep remembering this is a TV show and it’s supposed to be fun. I’ve always said if we aren’t having fun, there’s no point in doing it anymore. I know the week before it wasn’t that fun – he was frustrated with himself and I was frustrated that he wasn’t paying attention. I finally had to tell him this is supposed to be fun. Just focus for two hours and we can go home. So he did – and he was awesome.

I was falling out of my costume a little bit. It was worse in dress rehearsal. It looked like I had four boobs because my boob cubs were on my stomach. I’m glad that didn’t happen on the show. For those who want to know, we pick out our costumes. And sometimes when we see them, they’re a little different than we originally planned, they might have a little less fabric. But you go with it. The women who make those costumes every week are unsung heroes. They work morning, noon and night nonstop, sewing one individual rhinestone at a time. They’re incredible.

I know a bunch of you want to know what all of say and do after our routines. Well, my brother and Corky always have something to say. Last night, everyone was so complimentary and telling Cody it was his best dance so far. Oh, at the very end of last night’s dance, I was doing a little handstand thing. I got too high and almost fell forward. I did an extra little kick. Apparently backstage everyone was WHOA, is she going to fall over? I was freaked. Cloris is funny. But Warren and Maurice together, they are the true comedians of the show. You don’t see it at home, but they are hilarious. We’re on the floor laughing backstage. Brooke is having a blast, and I think Toni is getting kind of competitive in a fun way.

Hey, my Christmas album comes out today in Target. When I think of Christmas music, I think of it playing in the background while we’re wrapping presents, cooking dinner or getting ready to go snow boarding, and that’s the kind of album I wanted to make when I was picking the songs. I think it worked out great. My mom heard it for the first time last night and she was excited. That was a nice note of approval. Check it out for yourself. I’m thinking and hope that with all this music of mine out maybe next year I can perform on the American Music Awards. Who knows.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Julianne