14 DAY TRIAL // When a brand new season of Dancing With the Stars kicks off in March this year, fans will not be seeing 3-time champion Derek Hough on it. Derek has just announced he’s taking a break from the show to focus on his acting career.
The professional dancer, who not once stunned audiences with his and his partner’s incredible dance routines, is making the transition to feature films.
Understandably, he can’t focus on both DWTS and the movie he’s now working on, which is why he’s decided to take a break from the former, he explains for People magazine.
“I’m taking season 12 off,” he says for the celebrity magazine. He’ll be shooting “Cobu 3D” in Toronto and New York this spring, so the schedule wouldn’t have allowed him to do both.
Of course, he’ll be back in the fall for the next season of the popular ABC show, he promises. But making a feature film, a dance movie, will allow him to showcase his skills in ways that DWTS probably couldn’t.
“I will be making it back to Dancing With the Stars in the fall. I’m just taking a little break and taking this chance to grow and expand a little bit as an artist,” the pro dancer says.
“It’s like I told one of the producers on the show – I’ll come back with a whole new set of skills,” he promises.
Everybody on DWTS is thrilled at the chance Derek is getting with this movie, which sounds very much like a Romeo and Juliet type of story, with lots of dancing involved.
Executive producer Conrad Green is the first to say so: “We wish Derek the best as he takes time off from Dancing with the Stars to pursue his film career and look forward to having him return to the show in the fall.”
No release date for “Cobu 3D” has yet been announced.