Less than one year after winning the Dancing With the Stars Mirrorball trophy, Robert Irwin is back in the DWTS orbit as host of Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro. The series was filmed in Irwin’s native Australia and features 12 hopefuls competing to be named the newest professional dancer on Season 35 of Dancing With the Stars this fall.
“I didn’t realize how cutthroat this world of dancing and ballroom and everything is,” Irwin tells TV Insider. “The whole time I was watching this, going, ‘Thank goodness I was part of Dancing With the Stars and not being a contestant on The Next Pro because no way I could’ve done that. Wow.’”
Either way, Irwin is just thrilled to be part of the DWTS family amid the show’s popularity resurgence. “This show means so much to me, and it means so much to an entire generation because it’s so much more than dance,” he explains. “Dancing With the Stars unifies families around America, and I think I just love the fact that it’s having this absolutely unreal resurgence. We’re all banding together. Living rooms across America are coming together to watch something positive, to watch something fun. It actually means something. How wonderful is that? So to be part of that as a new era and a new beginning, I think, for the show is awesome.”
Irwin did more than just announce the contestants to the ballroom floor, where they were judged by Mark Ballas, Shirley Ballas, and a rotating guest judge each week. He also spent time with them as they prepared for their performances, which gave him a chance to connect with them on a deeper level.
Below (and in the video above), Irwin teases more of his involvement, details filming the show in Australia, and more.
You’ve had hosting experience in the past [on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here] – how did this compare to what you’d done before?
Robert Irwin: It felt like a melding of two worlds, really. I’ve always loved hosting. It’s what I’ve done since I was a kid, and most of that has been through the lens of wildlife and conservation. And I also now love dancing. I mean, who would’ve thought? I created this absolute love and respect and appreciation for this craft [while] doing Dancing With the Stars, and that experience gave me so much. So melding those two together and actually welcoming this dance family that I created to actually bring all of them to my home, to Australia, to film that right on my doorstep, it was a beautiful experience. It was really amazing. And it’s intense. Holy moly, I wasn’t even competing, and I was like, “I need to lay down.”
You had a chance to spend time with the contestants off the dance floor. How much were you involved in the day-to-day of what they were doing?
When I was asked to do this, first of all, I was so honored to remain part of the Dancing With the Stars family. But it was also a clear sort of, “Do you want to just come in and host, or do you want to be with them? Do you want to be there with them, in the trenches, experiencing everything they’re going through?” I said, “I want to be on the ground with them all the time.” So you see that in the show. I often go out and visit them, and I want to see how they’re doing. Then also, off camera, a lot of the time I was catching up with them. I was talking to them and giving them advice.
Disney/Maarten De Boer
You look at these 12 that are hoping to be the next pro, and this is the best of the best. That’s what sets this show apart. We’re watching people who’ve worked their entire life. A lot of them have one dream to be on Dancing With the Stars. This is the dream they’ve all had since they were kids. And that’s why it’s so intense. They know what’s on the line and everybody just wants to prove themselves, but they also want to tell stories. They want to tell their story and try and take people on this journey with them. It’s beautiful to watch.
You filmed at the Australia Zoo which is obviously special to you. Do you have a favorite memory from that day and what can you tease from what we can expect?
It was so special for me to welcome the cast and crew of The Next Pro to Australia. It was great. I wanted to kind of give them a day off and give them a day to also sort of find a bit of inspiration. I found, for me, when I was doing Dancing With the Stars, I was out of my element, out of my comfort zone. What I did to kind of rejuvenate was just find any sort of green space, go on a hike, dive, just do something outdoors. And I wanted to give them that opportunity, a day to spend with the koalas and the rhinos and giraffes in a beautiful botanic garden sanctuary that is the Australia Zoo. It was so special to watch that.
That’s why the dancers do what they do. They’re giving us this incredible artistic expression through passion and the love for the craft, and I get to do the same thing, but through nature, through wildlife. So it was very special. Dance and wildlife conservation couldn’t be more separate, but what they are and the people that are involved in these two walks of life are identical. It’s exactly the same. It’s passionate people that give everything to try and bring others on a journey. There are so many similarities, it’s really quite strange, actually.
Would you be interested in returning to host another season?
Oh, if we do another season of this, I’m right in there. I’m the first in there. I’ll be knocking on the door. Let’s go. I’m ready to go. I think Dancing With the Stars … I knew it was going to be amazing. I knew I would have fun because I watched my sister do it, and I’ve been a fan of the show since I was, like, 10 years old. And it’s been a dream to not only live out that dream, but find out that it was so much more than I could have ever hoped for is amazing.
Think back to when you’re a kid, and you have this one thing, and you’re like, “This one thing I want to achieve.” For me, I remember sitting in the ballroom watching my sister lift up the trophy, and I thought, “I want to do that one day.” And then to be in that world and for all the giant high expectations you build up over 10 years, that childhood dream reaches that unattainable level of glory. When you show up, and you find out it’s everything you dreamt of times 10, it’s such an amazing feeling.
What I didn’t expect was the community I would gain, the family I would gain, an incredible friend in Witney [Carson]. I never thought I would be able to take America on this journey and that I could spread my message to the whole country. It was everything. And so anything I can do within that Dancing With the Stars world, I’m the first in line, 100%. It gave me so much. It really did.
Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro, Series Premiere, Monday, July 13, 8/7c, ABC