Julianne Hough Talks Career & Love Life with Prestige

Highlights from Miss Hough's interview are as follows. For more, be sure to visit Prestige!

On what it was like working with Tom Cruise in "Rock of Ages":
"Tom Cruise is the hardest-working person. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody commit to something the way that he does. Everyone knows Tom Cruise from Top Gun and Tom Cruise from Mission Impossible. But no action hero was present during the filming of this movie – he was legitimately a rock star. He took vocal lessons and trained and his voice was outstanding. I had such a great time and I remember our first scene together. We were sitting talking and Sherrie [Hough’s character in the movie] is like a huge fan and she’s completely star-struck over him, and basically I didn’t have to act. I was looking at Tom Cruise! It was pretty amazing."

On whether dancing runs in her family:
"Yeah, my parents and my grandparents, they all danced. But not professional dancers. My favourite thing was to dance with them. They had the most charming way of dancing and such swagger. It was such fun."

On how dancing evolved from family fun into a serious profession:
"My mom just started popping kids out right and left and so she had to put them in some sort of activity to keep track of them or keep them out of trouble, and so we all just went into dance and acting and singing and kung fu and bongos. You name it, we tried it. And we just sort of gravitated towards the music and acting and dancing. My sisters are so talented. One sister is a songwriter and my older sister Sharee is supermom – she has six kids and is pretty incredible."

On how she and brother Derek ended up in England at such young ages:
"The dance coaches that I lived with in London came to Utah, to this dance studio I went to, and they saw my brother and me dance. It was right around the time that my parents were getting divorced, so there was tension around the house as they were working out their deal. We expected to stay [in London] for a couple of months, and I ended up staying for five years and my brother stayed for eight."

On how she was treated by Londoners:
"A little like we were aliens because of our accents. They would say “talk like us” when we were at school and then I would try and do this really bad English accent. My brother used to call me Madonna [because her English accent was so bad]. But now he can’t say anything because now my accent is pretty good. We had a great time going to a dramatic-arts school called Italia Conti Academy and I really see that as the most amazing experience of my life. The kids in there…we were all competitive. But more so with ourselves, just trying to be better. It was a great learning experience, which helped me decide what I want to do with my life."

On dating Ryan Seacrest:
"He has to keep up with me! You laugh, but it’s probably true. The good thing is that we both have the same personality. We’re both very driven. We’re very ambitious. We’re very career-oriented. We’re both in the entertainment world – “the industry” – but we have different jobs. So we get the work ethic and we get the commitment that we have towards it and we’re very supportive of each other, yet we have no competition. It’s actually a very great situation that we’re in."

On whether a wedding is on the way:
"I think we’re really happy where we are at this moment and I don’t think there’s any kind of pressure to do that. We’re just going to keep going. But if that ever happened, I don’t think it would be a big deal. It would be something very low-key. Not quite Vegas. But that’s not on our minds right now. We’re very happy with where we’re at and what we’re doing. You might as well be happy with doing what you’re doing than try and force something."

On something about her that people might be surprised to discover:
"I don’t think there’s a lot that people don’t know about me. I basically talk about myself 24/7. I’ve said in the past that I’m an adrenaline junkie and I like extreme sports and basically things that I think I may kill myself doing [she ponders the question in silence for a moment]. I really love food. I love to eat. I love to try new restaurants. I really love to cook. And I love the presentation. So I have to make the plate look amazing and sizzle the sauces. I like to bake as well. That’s one of my hidden things that I would eventually like to do. I think I would like to go and live in France or Italy for three weeks to a month and really learn to cook. But I would be extremely obese because I wouldn’t be able to cook and not eat everything that I make."