Gleb Savchenko can already sense a connection with Dancing With the Stars partner Brooks Nader — and it doesn’t hurt that he thinks the model is “hot.”
“We have a good energy. Like, I think we got good vibes. I mean, it’s nice to be in the room for five hours a day with someone that you get along with,” Savchenko, 40, exclusively told Us Weekly on Wednesday, September 4. “And also, you know, looking like that.”
The Russian dance pro is partnered with supermodel Nader, 27, for DWTS season 33 and told Us what he first thought when they met.
“She’s hot,” Savchenko quipped.
Lucky for Nader, she “felt the same way.”
“I was, like, ‘Oh, my God,’” Nader told Us on Wednesday. “It’s perfect. It’s so, like, annoying when you’re trying to learn something and you have to look at [Gleb], but no, we’ll work it out.”
In fact, Nader was “shocked” by how effortlessly she got along with Savchenko.
“I just thought a dancer, like, you know, [is] not my typical type,” she said. “Not that he is, [but] I’m just saying I was shocked, but let me just say, it was perfect actually.”
Savchenko, for his part, felt the same.
“I think Brooks has such a, like, high vibration and is so positive all the time. And then that’s what I’m all about,” he said. “Life is too short to just be grumpy, overthink things and get in [your] head. We’re just gonna have fun and create some awesome dances and work really hard.”
Savchenko and Nader have already started working together, revealing to Us how the process is going so far.
“We started with the tango. Our first dance is tango and it requires a lot of technique where you have to be, like, stiff on your body,” Savchenko teased. “And Brooks is very flexible. She likes to do a lot of body rolls and hip movements.”
Whether Savchenko and Nader’s connection will create steamy dances, they tell Us to “wait and see.”
“Just wait, it’s only the beginning,” he quipped.
Both Nader and Savchenko are “competitive” in their quest to win the mirrorball trophy despite taking on their biggest threats in Olympians Stephen Nedoroscik and Ilona Maher as well as former ballet dancer Chandler Kinney.
“I think that [signing on to DWTS] was more exciting to [my family] than anything I’ve ever done in my life,” Nader said. “Because we’ve all grown up, all four of us, every week watching LSU football and Dancing With the Stars. That was basically our life. So, you know, they freaked out. They and [my] aunts, uncles, cousins are gonna have watch [parties] every week. So we have to win for them.”
Dancing With the Stars season 33 premieres on ABC Tuesday, September 17, at 8 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi