Dani Dyer and her Strictly Come Dancing partner Nikita Kuzmin have confirmed they will perform a move 'never seen before' on the show, despite admitting it causes them both 'quite a lot of anxiety'.
The Love Island winner, 30, and her partner, 28, achieved their highest score yet last weekend with their Viennese Waltz to My Favourite Things. To go one better this weekend, they are pulling off a trick that has never been attempted on Strictly before.
A stressful start to the routine
The couple previously teased that the move might not go ahead if it proved too difficult in training, but speaking to Metro, Nikita confirmed: 'It worked!'
Details of the trick are being kept a secret, but Nikita did reveal it will take place on the stairs and is proving to be extremely stressful.
'It's going to be over and out quite quickly, and it does give us both quite a lot of anxiety because it's in the first 10 seconds of the routine and then we need to make it from the top to the down,' he said.
'It looks really cool, and nobody has ever used that kind of way of coming down the steps.'
Dani's confidence boost
Dani chipped in to add she is more excited than nervous about the new move.
'I like to try new things,' she said. 'After I done six lifts and was thrown around the air. I'm willing to do anything.'
This is remarkable given only a year ago she was forced to drop out of the competition due to an injury before the first live show. Fellow Love Island winner Amber Davies, 30, was roped in as a replacement at the very last minute with just days to learn and rehearse her first routine.
'The first week I was probably the most scared,' she says. 'I remember we got past the number of days where I got injured before and I was like, "We've done it. We've got past the curse." Now I've forgotten about it, in a sense. Obviously we're always very careful.
'I warm up my ankles, and I did a lot of physio; I have physio tape – I don't know how much tape I've ordered from Amazon. Every day starts with the tape, protecting the ankles, but it's something I had to just forget about really and hope for the best.'
A strong contender for the Glitterball
Now she is one of the strongest contenders for the Glitterball trophy. If there were a prize for most improved by the halfway mark, which the competition reaches this weekend, it would no doubt be hers.
For Dani, it all fell into place when they performed the salsa – the first time they managed to break through to score more than 30 points. The week before, her rumba saw her second from the bottom of the leaderboard, and she was dangerously close to being eliminated entirely.
'The rumba was my lowest point, and then we went in the training room the week after, and I was like, "No, I really need to just switch this now" because I've never been a confident person ever, so for me I was just like, "You've got to get this – it's in there somewhere", and the salsa was really good to do that.
'Then I've just sort of carried it the way through because I don't want to let myself down. But then I loved doing the Viennese Waltz because we were playing like with different characters and I really enjoyed doing that.'
If Dani and Nikita could sum up their Strictly journey so far, it would be 'It Had To Be You', which fittingly is the song they are performing an American Smooth to this week.
'That's our song this week, and it does feel like that,' said Nikita. 'I've said it to Danny; it's one of my favourite seasons ever. I've been enjoying every single moment in training; it's been so fun.
'I can't ask her to do more than what she's already doing. I can push her, but she's already her harshest critic, and she's pushing herself to the limit. She is so fun to be in the room, and she's so kind to everybody around her. Everybody loves Danny.'
'We just have so much fun,' Dani adds. 'It's lovely to just wake up every day to have that feeling of excitement, and it's just been everything I've wanted and more.'
Strictly Come Dancing continues tomorrow night at 6.40pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
