Maksim Chmerkovskiy will be bringing his personality with him as he heads behind the judges’ table on Monday night’s “Dancing with the Stars.”
“I’m absolutely going to be Maks,” the professional ballroom dancer told Access Hollywood’s Kit Hoover on Monday. “And most likely, there’s going to be a situation where when the whole thing is over, my mom’s gonna call me and say, ‘Maks! What? Come on!’ And those [moments] are not scripted, are not thought of. I haven’t thought of any catch phrases or one-liners. I just wanna be me.”
In his “DWTS” pro career, Maks has prompted a few headlines for taking on the judges, and the dancer said he expects the spirit with which he criticized the panel in the past, to inform his own position as an adjudicator.
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“Given our history and the banter between me and the judges, I need to look at it and say, ‘OK, back then, talking back to them, I wasn’t thinking that maybe there’ll be a time when you’ll be in that seat, so now how do I be what I wanted them to be?’” Maks told Kit.
“I don’t want to be a hypocrite,” he continued. “I want to be what I said then I didn’t like about them.”
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Maks said he plans to judge just the celebrities and not their pro partners, bringing his experience into his critiques.
“I’m a traditionally trained ballroom dancer, I’m gonna be a traditionally traditional judge,” he said, noting he’ll bring a younger perspective as well.
“Dancing with the Stars” kicks off tonight at 8/7c on ABC.
— Jolie Lash
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