"It was really interesting for us to be in that environment again," Ziegler exclusively tells Parade when she, Steve, Audrey and the film's director and co-writer Rick Gomez stop by Parade's video studio during the Tribeca Festival. "When we were on the stage, and all the dancers are stretching, I was like, 'Whoa, this is a fever dream. I feel like I'm back when I was like 10 at a dance competition.' It felt so real."
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For Ziegler, however, filming She Dances was therapeutic. "I definitely felt very at home," she says. "But I think for me, it was obviously better [than Dance Moms] because we were dancing together. It was so fun, and I think now I found a love for dance doing it separate than actual dance competitions. Dance competitions can be very toxic, and so it felt really nice to dance again, and I definitely think it helped me find my love for it."
Audrey Zahn and Steve Zahn in She DancesMacaroni Art Productions/Wavelength
"I was the sheriff, and he was my deputy," Steve remembers. "We grew up as young actors in New York, and we just never met."
"We were like-minded artistically, and then we wanted to make stuff," continues Steve.
"There was a little girl who came out," he remembers. "She danced her butt off, and I don't know what she did wrong, but she felt like she did something wrong, and she held it the whole dance, and danced and smiled and bowed like a warrior. She came off the stage, and once she hit the curtain on the side, burst into tears and ran to her coach, and was like [mimics sobs]. I was like, 'Oh my God, these are warriors. These little girls are warriors.' and that's the way we decided to shoot it. That's the way we wanted to hold the whole space."
"The second we met, I was like, 'She's gonna be my friend for forever,'" Ziegler remembers of the two meeting. "We clicked instantly, and we obviously were such goofballs on set." The pair's chemistry is palpable on screen with both actresses delivering at some times extremely emotional and at others gut-bustingly funny performances on top of their dance work.
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Mackenzie Ziegler and Audrey Zahn in She DancesMacaroni Art Productions/Wavelength
Once on set, Steve says that as "a sap," it was easy to transfer his love for his daughter into his acting, especially during a climactic scene that involves some of the Zahn family's real home videos.
While preparing to shoot the film, Steve provided a box of old VHS tapes from his attic to Gomez, who after watching, immediately decided to integrate them into the movie at several points.
When asked which of her dad's movies is her favorite, Audrey responds, "I love That Thing You Do." She watches his films unless "he brutally dies in something," in which case she says, "No, not for me."
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Steve Zahn and Ethan Hawke in She DancesMacaroni Art Productions/Wavelength
"I don't know where it came from," Audrey says of the impression's origin. "I just figured out one day that I could do it. Dad thought I was really good at it, like so much so that I filmed a video and sent it to him. He showed Jennifer Coolidge. She sent a video back, impersonating me."
Gomez decided to let the girls shoot a scene in the film in their impressions, and liked it so much that they didn't shoot it how they'd originally planned. "We have no safety," he says. "That was either gonna be in the movie or that scene wasn't going to be in the movie at all."
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