Ant Middleton has served in the UK Special Forces and climbed the world’s two highest mountains. But when he was asked to go on Dancing With The Stars Australia, he felt “a bolt of fear” go through him. The glitz and glam of the dance floor was way out of his comfort zone, but that wasn’t all.
“That fear of what people think about you, how people are going to see you and judge you, that hit me as well,” SAS Australia’s chief instructor tells TV WEEK from his home in Dubai.
“I’m going to be on TV doing a skill set I know nothing about. Obviously, failure is staring me in the face.”
Once Ant felt that fear, he knew what he had to do.
“There’s no growth in comfort,” he says. “So it was an instant yes, but with the engulfing fear of, ‘Oh my God – how am I going to come out of this?’”
Ant, 43, says training with his dance partner Alexandra Vladimirov for up to six hours a day was “intense”.
“I was sweating from the first minute to the last,” he says. “I’ve done more rigorous training than that, but the intensity and the different type of training that engaged different muscles… I lost a few kilograms, for sure.”
Training wasn’t just a physical challenge for Ant. Alex told him he needed to “bring the emotion” into the dance.
“I guard my emotions and keep them quite close to my chest,” he says. “But she was like, ‘No, this is the opportunity to let your emotions do the talking for you.’ It wasn’t until one of the routines that I got quite emotional, actually. I started really welling up.
“I realised the power of dance. That sounds really, really corny, but I realised, ‘Wow – there’s so much that goes into dancing.’”
Ant, who has four children – Shyla, Gabriel, Priseis and Bligh – with his wife Emilie, as well as a son, Oakley, from a previous relationship, says his family were “super-supportive” of his performances. It was just his costumes they found funny.
“[They had] a few laughs and giggles at my expense,” he adds, “But it’s all part and parcel of your family keeping you grounded.”
After Dancing with the Stars, viewers will see Ant in his documentary about climbing K2, the second-highest mountain in the world “but the most dangerous”. Beyond that, he’s keen for more SAS Australia. So which of his DWTS co-stars would do well on SAS?
“All of them,” he declares. “Everyone was committed, everyone was focused,” adding that if they did go on the show, they’d be in for a “complete shock”.
“They’d be like, ‘Hey Ant,’ and I’d be like, ‘Who the hell are you calling ‘Ant’? It’s ‘Staff’ to you! Right, get down and give me 20!’”
Dancing With The Stars airs Sunday’s at 7pm on Channel Seven. For more information on what’s on TV this week, read our comprehensive TV Guide.
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