Former Atlantan Kyle Massey does not look like a dancer. He's a bit on the heavy side. And although he has been reared as a Disney Channel actor, he admits he has no dancing background whatsoever.
Yet here he is ready to be the youngest contestant on "Dancing With the Stars" at age 19.
"It's going very well," he said in a phone interview before daily rehearsals last Wednesday. "It's really a new twist on old dancing. We do old dances with new music."
The former star of Disney's "Cory in the House," a spinoff of "That's So Raven," Massey wasn't deeply familiar with the show before he joined it. Once he was explained how it worked, "my stress level went down. Before that, I was pretty nervous."
His partner is
Lacey Schwimmer (left)
, who took season 10 off but has participated three times before on the show, including
Steve-O
and
Lance Bass
. She started very basic with him on day one but as time goes on "she is gradually tightening the grip," he said. "It's like video games. You have to work on the first level before you can reach the final one."
Massey said he's actually in good shape. "My brother and I play basketball. We go to Michael Jordan camp. We play golf. I stay up nine and a half hours in a recording studio. My body is really prepped for this."
And though he is not exactly a household name outside certain circles, "I think the audience will have connections with us. We're the youngest. So in a sense, we have the most to prove. We're performing with legends. David Hasselhoff! Brandy!" He also hopes his humor and their chemistry will help them stick around awhile.
So far, he said he has not seriously injured himself. "The shoes have slippery soles," he said. "I sometimes roll my ankle and fall on the ground. I did spin Lacey and a heel stuck. I almost did a split. My body is not meant to do splits!"
Of the 11 competitors, he has only met Hasselhoff, who grew up in Atlanta, just a few weeks earlier at a Gulf Coast concert to raise funds for oil spill victims.
Who is he most excited to meet? Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino. "I don't know why," he mused. "I think his show is funny. He's going to be very funny."
Massey in recent months has only been able to visit Atlanta for a day and a half. (His dad still lives here.)
He does a voice on an upcoming animated show on Disney called "Fish Hooks" set to debut Sept. 24. And he's host of syndicated show "World's Funniest Moments" with his brother Chris.
Massey looks pretty good in this early rehearsal video:
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