Alyson Hannigan, who’s been in the bottom two more than once this season on “Dancing With the Stars,” is realistic about her chances of winning the dance competition.
“I know I’m not the best dancer. I’m never going to be the best dancer,” she told TheWrap ahead of Tuesday night’s episode. ” The fact that I’m still here, I’m so grateful.”
Hannigan said she’s not letting scores in the 4, 5 and 6 range get her down. “I’m not really putting my energy and focus on that,” she said. “I listen to the judges’ advice, and I try to bring that to the next dance and I really work my hardest, but it certainly doesn’t come naturally to me. I can’t be in it for the scores. I’m never going to see a 10. I’m OK, I’ve accepted that.”
The expressive actress was told to tone down the goofiness for her dramatic tango on Latin Night, which earned her the best scores of the season so far. “I did struggle with the face and the performance of it. Sasha kept saying, ‘Try to be sexy,’ which as soon as he says that, I’m lost. I’m like, ‘That doesn’t resonate with me.’”
Instead of dialing up the sexiness, she decided that her character was “like, ‘I love you, but I don’t want to love you’ so that I could like have some sort of internal thing going on. And so I think that works for me, but I think there were quite a few days where I think I just looked constipated,” she laughed.
She said that she’s pleased with her last jazz routine to “Be Our Guest” from “Beauty and the Beast,” in which she was dressed up like a candlestick. “I’m proud of the fact that I went there last week and with all the new elements that we had in the costume and all the stuff that I didn’t mess up, I’m just proud of myself and I’m not going to let a number on a paddleboard change that,” she said.
For Week 5, the theme is “My Most Memorable Year,” and Hannigan will be dancing a Viennese waltz to “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran. She’s dedicating the song to her husband of 20 years, fellow “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” star Alexis Denisof.
“If I could write a song for my husband, it would be this,” she said. “I mean, we’d have to change the genders, but anyway it just means a lot to me to be able to dance, and this dance represents our love and our relationship — it just means so much.”
The main reason she went on the show, said the actress, was for her daughters, who are 11 and 14. “They’re both at the age where we as parents keep encouraging them to try the volleyball team and the swim team and all these new things. And now they’re old enough to know that I would be hypocritical if I didn’t do something that I’m afraid of doing. So it was really just like, I’ve got to walk the walk.”
Her gamble paid off. Hannigan’s youngest daughter is so impressed, she’s kept all of her mom’s fake eyelashes and a sequin from the show and put them on an index card. “It’s kind of her museum. She’s got quite a little collection going.”
Hannigan added, “She was starting to give me side hugs, but once I started doing the show, I’m getting full hugs now. So I bought myself at least six months of hugs.”
“Dancing With the Stars” airs on ABC at 8 p.m. ET/PT and also streams live on Disney+ in each time zone.