Tanner family talk! Dancing With the Stars competitor Jodie Sweetin tells Us Weekly exclusively that she got some solid advice from her Fuller House costar Candace Cameron Bure ahead of her big debut on the reality show. The ’90s actress caught up with Us backstage at the DWTS season 22 premiere at CBS Television City studios in L.A. on Monday, March 21.
“Monday nights were really hard for her,” Sweetin tells Us of Cameron Bure’s stint on season 18 of DWTS. Cameron Bure was one of the final three competitors on the show back in 2014. “She kind of freaked out,” Sweetin says. “[But] she told me to enjoy it.”
And Sweetin’s taken her onscreen big sister’s advice to heart. “I’m just getting out there and enjoying it,” she tells Us. “I said, ‘Keo, let’s go out, just you and me, and let’s have fun.'”
Sweetin, who’s paired with dance pro Keo Motsepe, kicked off her introduction on Monday night with a pre-taped Full House–inspired snippet. Then she performed a sultry tango set to Demi Lovato‘s smash hit “Confident,” for which she received 20 out of a possible 30 points.
The actress tells Us she was pleased with Monday night’s results. “We went out and had fun, we did what we wanted to do!” Sweetin says. “We watched videos of all our rehearsals, and now we just watched the video back of tonight and we were really happy with it!”
Part of the challenge for Sweetin, 34, has been interpreting the dances correctly. “I was thinking like, ‘How do I get intensity to read big?'” the former child star tells Us. “It’s one thing to do it on film or a TV show, but it’s a whole other thing to do it in a ballroom in front of 900 people in a wide shot! So I think I was going for that, but I welcome any critiques and I want to do something different next week.”
Like Cameron Bure, Sweetin’s fiancé, Justin Hodak, also gave the star some sound advice. “We were in rehearsal and I said, ‘I want to look like Witney [Carson]! Or Peta [Murgatroyd]!'” Sweetin recalls to Us. “And he was like, ‘Babe, they’ve been doing this for 22 years, the fact that you’re doing what you’re doing is amazing!’ So I had to take a step back and say, ‘Oh, OK!’ I’m hard on myself and I have high expectations. I love it, so I want it to look just right. I’m a huge fan of dance and ballroom dance, so I look at it and I say, ‘I want that!’ I’m willing to work hard to get it.”
Watch her amazing Full House opening above, and tune in to the new season of DWTS on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
