Xochitl Gomez Shares How Her Martial Arts Training Has Helped on ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ Teases Her ‘Latin Night’ Dance With This Movie Title (Exclusive)

Xochitl Gomez is returning to the ballroom TONIGHT (October 3) alongside her pro dance partner Val Chmerkovskiy on Dancing With the Stars!

The 17-year-old actress is the youngest competitor this season, but that’s not slowing her down.

In week one, Xochitl and Val did very well with their cha cha, earning an 18 out of 30 score.

For week two, they will be dancing the salsa to Camila Cabello‘s “Don’t Go Yet,” for the show’s “Latin Night.”

Ahead of this week’s competition, we sat down with the Marvel star and talked about what her experience has been like so far on the show, how her musical theater and martial arts backgrounds have helped her and more.

Find out what she shared inside…

Just Jared: What has been your biggest challenge of competing on the show so far?
Xochitl Gomez: Ooh… I’d probably just say, I don’t know, probably [being] in my own head a little bit. I think that sometimes I can get in my head about, just like at the very last minute. I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s competition mode. This is scary.’ So kind of just that own mentality. But so far, it’s been pretty easy and pretty fun. I think a part of it has to come from my musical theater background. Just when I get in front of a crowd, I just feel so excited. So I’m not too scared. I’m just rather more like in anticipation to get out there.

JJ: Has your musical theater experience helped you in any way?
XG: Yeah, for sure. I mean, as I’ve gone into seeing it on camera, I’ve definitely noticed the term, the 40th row has come up very much, especially musical theater. It’s been like, you have to make your energy and your expressions on your face be able to be so commutative that you can see them from the 40th row. And my mom said that to me after I did my first rehearsal, like the first camera blocking, she was like, ’40th row girl, 40th row.’ And it just brought me right back and I was like, oh, got you. I’ve got to be that in it. And yeah, I mean, it’s helped me a lot. I mean, I’m very excited for our salsa. I think you could see that from the 80th row. It’s very exciting.

JJ: Speaking of salsa, since this week is Latin week and Val is a Latin dance champion, do you think it gives you more of an advantage?
XG: Oh my gosh, what is Val not some champion of? Yeah, I gotta say Val has done a really good job with his choreo in this one. I mean, cha cha was amazing, but this one, his choreography is really, really good. Yeah, I mean he’s done just such a good job, but also not only just teaching me the dance, but also teaching me some background about what salsa is. I mean, I’m only 17, I don’t know anything about salsa, because usually when you learn salsa it’s like in a club or something like that. So he’s had to do a lot of teaching me about that kind of stuff and I’ve only had just great experiences so far with him.

JJ: Speaking of only being 17, since you’re the youngest competitor, does that add more pressure because you’re so young.
XG: Not really funny enough, I mean, it’s been, actually I feel like it’s been in my advantage a little bit, just because it’s almost like in a family, you have to have a bunch of people that are various different kind of vibes and personalities. I think what’s so great about DWTS is, well Dancing With the Stars, is that it is like a family, and so me, it’s like in this position of being so young, I actually see everyone as like, you know, uncles and aunts and people that I can like look up to, you know. I think that’s probably my perspective on it because I’m so young.

JJ: What have you learned about yourself that’s new since starting this whole process?
XG: I’m trying to think… Probably that I can dance pretty well. I didn’t think I could dance as crazy as I could. I guess that, because I mean, I do TikTok dances, but I have no dance experience at all. I’ve never danced cha cha, I’ve never danced salsa, I’ve never done any of this, like any kind of dance. I mean, even in musical theater, I did 22 full length musicals, but they’re youth musical theater, you know. I haven’t even ever taken ballet, that’s how no dance experience I have, like I have zero. And as a kid, I mean, I did rugby, flag football, like that was my vibe. So going into this, I was just like, okay, I really got to lean into like all the TikTok because I know nothing else.

JJ: What are you hoping to get out of this experience?
XG: Knowing how to dance. To be able to go out there and actually know what I’m doing and not just be like, ‘What can I do?’, you know, but actually. It’s the opportunity to actually learn how to do all these things, you know, and participate in such an amazing show.

JJ: You mentioned last week that you’re used to doing stunts and that this is different from stunt choreography, but has your stunt choreography training helped you in learning dance choreography?
XG: Yeah, for sure. I mean, in certain little aspects, you can see that. I mean, we’ve done, we’ve started doing lifts and stuff, and just even just practicing it. I mean, I posted about it on my Instagram and it was pretty funny because we were doing these different lifts and stuff, and I could barely get it. I was like, oh my gosh, this is so scary. But we recently, and I’ll give you a little hint. It’s in our dance, we were, I’m jumping off something at the very beginning. And I have a little bit of height issues, like that kind of stuff. But challenging that was really fun. And especially, I do martial arts. So there’s a lot of similarities with that. I mean, having to have your legs straight in a specific time and that kind of stuff. So that, that helped me, just because ballet, I’ve nothing with that, but at least I have a lot of similarities with martial arts.

JJ: Now that you’ve got the first dance out of the way, has that helped your confidence in going forward in the competition?
XG: Yeah, it has. I mean, now I know what the lay of the land is like, I know what’s going on. I thought I would have a lot more jitters than I did have. Which actually, funny enough, it felt like this week went by really fast. Like it was the show, then we rehearsed like a couple of times. Now we’re here. And like, that’s, that’s the vibe on this week. But yeah, I feel a lot more confident going into it now, just because now I know what’s, what the routine is going to be. And I just feel excited.

JJ: You’ve teased a little bit about your dance this week, but what else can you tease about this week’s “Latin Night” dance?
XG: Ooh, I’m just going to say one, one thing – In the Heights. That’s all you get. That’s a lot, given what what you’re going to see tomorrow.

Be sure to tune in to watch Xochitl Gomez dance the salsa during week two of Dancing With the Stars TONIGHT (October 3) at 8pm ET/PT on ABC and Disney+!

To vote for her and Val, voting opens when the show starts at 8pm ET/PT, and there are two options: You can text “Xochitl” to 21523 up to 10 times, or you can go to DWTSvote.abc.com to cast your votes that way!