When you were making your 2025 predictions, a collaboration between The White Lotus actor Steve Zahn and Dance Moms alum Mackenzie Ziegler might not have been high on your list. The unlikely duo, however, are the stars of the Tribeca Festival's heartwarming breakout hit She Dances along with Zahn's daughter Audrey Zahn. The trio makes a lot more sense when you factor in the fact that, like Ziegler, Audrey has been dancing competitively from a young age, and their new movie is set within that world.
"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."
While Ziegler, like her older sister Maddie Ziegler, found fame on the Lifetime reality TV show Dance Moms, Ziegler admits she was anxious about returning to that world after years away. "Because I hadn't danced in so long, I was really nervous stepping into that environment, and so I was a little intimidated, but it really worked out. I think [Audrey and I] dance really well together."
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In She Dances, Jason (Steve Zahn) must unexpectedly chaperone his daughter Claire (Audrey Zahn) and her best friend Kat (Ziegler) to the Young Miss Southeast Regional Dance Finals, when his ex-wife Deb (Rosemarie DeWitt) unexpectedly can't attend. The elephant in the ballroom, however, is the recent death of Claire's brother, whom the father/daughter duo are very much still grieving at the competition.
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
The idea for She Dances initially came when Steve and Audrey were sending videos from one of her competitions back to Gomez, who is a family friend in addition to being their collaborating partner. Gomez and Steve met while filming the short-lived ABC drama The Crossing and instantly hit it off.
"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."
"I was almost his understudy in subUrbia at Lincoln Center," Gomez interjects. "You almost did Band of Brothers."
"We were like-minded artistically, and then we wanted to make stuff," continues Steve.
When the Zahns introduced Gomez to the world of dance competitions, he and Steve (who is also a co-writer), decided they'd found the world for their first feature film collaboration. Gomez then attended a dance competition himself and was instantly impressed by the tenacity of the dancers.
"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."
From that germ, Steve and Gomez worked on the larger narrative, weaving in bits and pieces of stories they heard about families during COVID. They cast Audrey as the daughter given her dance and theater background and then brought on Ziegler as the third member of their trio.
"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.
Audrey's longtime choreographer Jamie Harvener choreographed the dance sequences in the film while the dozens of extras at the competition are played by people Audrey danced with growing up in Kentucky.
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Mackenzie Ziegler and Audrey Zahn in She DancesMacaroni Art Productions/Wavelength
Audrey's chemistry with Steve is also incredibly natural for obvious reasons, but Steve says, "The best compliment I can give her, and the film, is that it was like every other movie." The pair rehearsed in London for three weeks while Steve was shooting Silo (another show he happens to act on with Gomez).
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.
"In that moment, it was beautiful for everybody, but as a dad, that wasn't hard to tap into," he says getting emotional looking back on the day they filmed. "It's so layered. Here I am playing a character, but I'm also reacting to my daughter, who's playing a character. I'm reacting to home videos. You watch a home video from the past of your kids, I get all worked up. I'm such a sap, so it was layered watching that stuff and seeing my son and my daughter at three and five, like swimming."
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.
Gomez also teases "a great Easter egg" for viewers who stick around until the end of the credits that involves footage of one of Steve's old high school performances.
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
Of Steve's previous work that also includes Daddy Day Care, You've Got Mail and Dallas Buyers Club, the one that perhaps influenced She Dances the most is The White Lotus, mostly because Audrey showcases a killer Jennifer Coolidge impersonation in the film.
"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."
Ziegler also picked up the impression on set to the point she says, "Most of the time we were interacting was in Jennifer Coolidge."
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."
Audrey has yet to meet Jennifer Coolidge in person, but I'm ready to start a GoFundMe to get Jennifer Coolidge to the film's premiere when it opens wide.
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