‘DWTS’: Derek Hough And Nastia Liukin Catching ‘Frozen’ Fever For Disney Night

Derek Hough and Nastia Liukin will be doing a Frozen-themed dance during Disney Night on Dancing with the Stars. You’d think that performing to a song from one of Disney’s most popular movies ever would make the couple a shoe-in to top the leaderboard this week, but there’s a catch — Derek will likely portray the movie’s most unpopular character.

In his weekly TV Guide blog, Derek Hough revealed that he and Nastia Liukin won’t be dancing to every Frozen fans’ favorite earworm, “Let It Go.” Instead, the consistently high-scoring pair are going to skip across the DWTS ballroom floor to a much quicker tune, “Love Is An Open Door.”

“It’s Disney Week and we’re doing jazz to ‘Love Is an Open Door’ from Frozen, so you’re in luck if you’re sick of ‘Let It Go!’ ” Derek wrote in his blog. “The only reason we did jazz was because we really couldn’t figure out another style of dance that would fit for that song. The routine is cute. We’re having fun with it in that it’s really about the enjoyment of it and the characters and the lyrics. Everything is so on the nose. I mean, it’s Disney Week, so you have to be. It’s very whimsical and fun.”

Frozen fans know that this is the song that Anna and Hans sing before the Arendelle princess discovers that the object of her affection is a power-hungry villain. You can check it out below.

Derek Hough will presumably portray Prince Hans, and Nastia Liukin will be Princess Anna. Derek can only hope that Dancing with the Stars voters don’t withhold their votes simply because he’s playing a conniving villain. Judging from the Instagram photo below, it looks like he’s already trying to get into character.

“Winter is coming! #DWTS #frozen #notdancingtogameofthrones,” he captioned the picture.

Derek is also getting into the Frozen spirit by doing a little chilly cryotherapy. In his blog post, he explained why he shares Elsa’s love of the cold.

“I’m just getting frozen for next week. Method dancer here! No, but that’s actually something I’ve done for a while. I do ice baths every night, but we don’t have ice baths at Dancing, so before I get on the plane, I go to the cryotherapy place. You go in for two and a half minutes. It’s good for your muscles, fatigue, inflammation, you [sic] skin and a bunch of different things.”

Some Dancing with the Stars fans might be wondering why Nastia Liukin isn’t playing Elsa and dancing to “Let It Go” — after all, the gymnast does resemble the Snow Queen. Unfortunately, James Maslow and Peta Murgatroyd already danced to the tune during Season 18’s Disney Night, and Peta got to wear an Elsa costume. According to E! News, she and James earned a perfect score, so Derek and Nastia definitely don’t want the judges to compare their upcoming performance to a flawless one. You can check out James and Peta’s Frozen dance below.

The Inquisitr previously shared a list of the other Disney Night songs and who will be dancing to them. Derek and Nastia’s toughest competition could come from Val Chmerkovskiy and Rumer Willis — they’re dancing to “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid. Willow Shields and Mark Ballas also scored a movie that they can have a lot of fun with: Alice in Wonderland.

Do you think Derek Hough and Nastia Liukin will land at the top of the leaderboard this week on Dancing with the Stars?

[Image via Derek Hough/Instagram]