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          She was relentlessly polite and talked with gratitude about her background as a dancer on Dancing With The Stars, America’s Strictly, and as soon as she heard my British accent, she was keen to bond with me about her years spent at Italia Conti in London and how in awe she was of Leona Lewis who was a few years above her.
She played up the fact she was an interesting mixture of extremes. Giggling, ‘I’m literally in my bra and panties at the start of that movie. My dad is going to have to cover his eyes.’ Her father and the rest of her family are Mormons from Utah.
She comes from generations of ballroom dancers. Somehow even wearing hardly any clothes she manages to seem wholesome. She seems knowing for her 23 years.
She played down the fact that her brother Derek was at the time all over the tabloids because he was ‘dating’ Cheryl Cole. She played down the fact that she had recently become one half of Hollywood’s hottest and potentially most powerful showbusiness couples.
She’d just begun (spring 2010) her relationship with Ryan Seacrest who as well as being America’s number one host - American Idol, E! News and a national daily radio show - has become one of America’s most successful television producers. He is the man behind the vastly successful Keeping Up With The Kardashians and its various offshoots. And before that Denise Richards: It’s Complicated.
Everyone loves Seacrest, including Hough. But more of that later.
Today, just over a year on Hough has more in common with Seacrest than she initially must have imagined. She has immense drive and the ability to throw herself at anything. She has just completed two leading lady roles. In the first she plays Ariel in the remake of Footloose, a damaged slutty girl who manages to dance her way into everybody’s hearts. And next up a rock chick songbird who finds fame with Tom Cruise and Russell Brand in Rock Of Ages. In Footloose she pulls off a tough and charismatic performance.
Today she’s wearing a grey T-shirt and a black leather mini skirt and manages to look cool even in the 100 degree heat. She has bright light blue eyes, huge. Long hair expertly highlighted from platinum to honey. Voluminous lips that are glossed in Chanel’s Coral Reef. She is beyond pretty.
Does she think that she is similar to the rebellious Ariel? ‘Ariel starts out as this stone cold girl who doesn’t take crap from anybody, and then you see in her heart she doesn’t want to be this person. When her boyfriend is asking her to take off her shirt you can tell she does this because that’s how people expect her to behave, and I definitely can relate to that. I was at Italia Conti in London from the age of 10 to 15. I felt I was very mature for my age, as the youngest of 5 (four sisters, one brother). I was always very independent and in London teenagers are more mature than America. So when I went back to Utah I had matured so much more than my friends. I had nothing in common with them. It was so hard to relate to anybody and everyone thought I was much more worldly than I was. And Utah was very conservative.’
Can it be possibly true that this gorgeous creature who seems to have it all was a high school outcast? ‘Yes, I was. It was like Mean Girls. I ate lunch in the bathroom alone and girls invited me to parties that were really just abandoned houses. I got asked to the prom only to get ditched and I was like oh, these American high school movies are real.’
There’s only a fleck of bruised ego, a smidgen of pain that remains as she smiles and says, ‘I think all that makes you tougher and stronger. I definitely have my guard up sometimes and I don’t let a lot of people in. I’m very careful.’
So for instance any gossip on her brother and his links to Cheryl Cole is met with a sweet but firm ‘I don’t really speak about my brother’s personal life. We are very close.’
She and her brother both studied at Italia Conti theatre arts school. ‘My parents were going through a divorce so it seemed like a good time. “You two can go away for a couple of months.” We ended up staying for five years.
She talks of that time with nostalgic sweetness and a little triumph.
‘I was at school with Ashley Lilley from Mama Mia and Newton Faulkner. I knew him as Sam though, he still had the dreads.’ She says that when she arrived she wasn’t a very good dancer. A year later she couldn’t stop winning ballroom competitions including the world championships at Blackpool.
‘Dance was my life. I didn’t eat. I wanted to just keep dancing because it was my life 24/7. I got burnt out though. I did too much and I wasn’t really enjoying it any more. I did several seasons of Dancing with the Stars but I was definitely using it to get somewhere else. I don’t mean in a bad way,’ she corrects quickly as if I have just seen her ambition naked and she wants to cover it. And then she carries on, ‘I loved the show. And then I did my music (she’s signed to a country and western label) but I really wanted opportunities for acting.”Not that she’s content with just acting she want to incorporate the singing and dancing as well. ‘When I think of the people I want to be like it’s old school Hollywood actors. They did everything. They danced, they sang – Judy Garland, Ginger Rodgers. There weren’t so many of them doing everything, that’s why they became über stars.’ There’s no doubt that über stardom is on her horizon. That shared drive and ambition with Seacrest helps power that on.
Does she think they are similar as people? ‘Definitely. We joke that we are the same person. We are our biggest competition. I am never satisfied with what I’ve done and it’s the same thing with him.’
Does she feel that her relentless drive has affect her previous relationships badly – she was engaged to dancer Zach Wilson and then went out with country singer Chuck Wicks. They broke up in 2009? ‘Trust me. I’ve been in relationships where it’s been like that. Because I am driven and I have my goals and my craft and I’m doing everything so I can get somewhere some men feel emasculated by that. We definitely don’t have that problem here. Ryan is very successful at what he does and I am on my path. We are doing different things. I’ve never met someone that’s been so supportive as Ryan has been. I’m very lucky.’
They are also both so very busy. In the past Seacrest, 36, has not been too successful at juggling his enormous career with relationships. It takes someone who is independent and never needy to deal with that. Do they get to see each other often ? ‘It’s definitely hard but we make it work. It’s funny watching us trying to make our schedules work. We’re literally lying in bed right next to each other going OK, I’m here this day, let me see yours. Maybe I can fly here when you’re off for these three hours. And we’re going back and forth like that.’
Has she ever thought of working on something together? ‘Oh goodness no. both our careers are very different.’ She says with determination that they will never mix business with pleasure
Did he visit her on the Footloose set? ‘He came on set once and it was a scene after Kenny (Wormald), who plays Ren, had done his angry dance and I say something like “You think I’m a slut. Let me show you something.” And Ryan is like, “What. Wait. What are you going to show him?” So that was quite funny.’ In reality her character was about to show her softer side.
The movie is about a town in the South that has banned dancing because it is deemed to be dangerous. But the newcomer in town thinks otherwise and shows it’s an important emotional if not spiritual release.
Is Ryan a good dancer? Do they dance well together? ‘Yes. What’s great is he’s not insecure. So even if he isn’t great he’ll do it anyway.’
How do they like to spend their time together. We work out outside a lot. We like hiking and we love to cook. We are always making guacamole. I used to never think about what I ate because I was always dancing and super skinny. When I stopped dancing regularly I blew up and put on 20lbs. so now I have to work out and it really sucks.
Does she ever just stop? ‘Sometimes I’ll have those days where I want to each chocolate and I’ll put on The Notebook (a weepy movie that weirdly is also Leona Lewis’s favourite). But most of the time I stay busy otherwise I feel I’ll get sick, that my body will slow down…’
There seems little chance of slowing down. Next up she’s in talks to star with Russell Brand in Lamb Of God, a story about love and religion.
Most of the time she prefers not to go to bed with a movie. ‘If I get new Louboutins or Brian Atwoods or Miu Mius, the first night I get a pair I think they’re so awesome I have to sleep with them.’
Good to know there is always room in the bed for shoes.