Ryan Guzman On 'Step Up Revolution,' Kathryn McCormick, Learning To Dance, His Workout Tips

It differs. I just did a concept video for one of my friends. It’s the very, very first concept video I’ve ever done. I haven’t done choreography since the shooting of Step Up and the promo of Step Up, but I’m still training right now. It’s something I’ve fallen in love with. It’s right up there with my fighting, my MMA, because it’s such a good workout and you’re just learning your body a lot more.

It took me three weeks to learn everything in the movie, and that was actually all I was given: either learn in three weeks or we’re going to use a dance double. And I’m very competitive, so I didn’t want to use a dance double. I wanted to give everything I possibly could to the movie, so I ended up showing what I had learned to the director and producers and they ended up making the end result, just using me and not using a dance double whatsoever in the movie.

I don’t think there’s time to actually think, “Oh, this is my role to get.” My audition process was a lot longer than a lot of other people’s — it was nine, ten auditions, a month-and-a-half long process. The whole time I was just trying to learn and become a better actor and dancer and enjoy the process. I never felt like I had it, but with the whole becoming a part of the Step Up franchise, it’s been beyond anything that I could think of. I didn’t come out to L.A. to be an actor and here I am being an actor. And not only am I being an actor, I’m thrust into the lead role of this huge franchise. So I go from zero to 60 really quick and a lot it has been overwhelming. I’ve been trying to take it all in and getting adoration from fans all over the world, and my Twitter and my Facebook blowing up. You have to learn how to deal with it all and I’m still in the process of all that.

It helped me out with the dancing. It helped out with my body. I knew my body really well through fighting, and what it could and couldn’t do, the limits it had. So I incorporated a lot of what I’ve learned through my fighting life into my dancing life. And luckily the choreographers worked with me a lot and kind of meshed those two things together and creating choreography that would look good with my body.

I definitely put a lot of Ryan into Sean, but there are definitely pieces of Sean that are definitely not Ryan. We both take the leader role quickly and we’re not that vocal. I think with Sean I wanted to portray that actions speak louder than words, and that’s kind of the basis I live my life by. Sean is not as vocal as Mischa Gabriel’s character Eddy, but his presence is known and when he wants something done he gets it done.

Sometimes I work too hard. I surround myself with work too much or I’ll try way too hard to get a specific skill down when I need to relax. I’ll let work kind of consume me. So just taking a breather every now and then and just relaxing and enjoying life. Maybe when I get Johnny Depp status, hopefully I do, you know, when I can just take a trip to the Bahamas on a whim, maybe I’ll learn that.

Sometimes I work too hard. I surround myself with work too much, or I’ll try way too hard to get a specific skill down when I need to relax. I’ll let work kind of consume me. So just taking a breather every now and then and just relaxing and enjoying life. Maybe when I get Johnny Depp status, hopefully I do, you know, when I can just take a trip to the Bahamas on a whim, maybe I’ll learn that.

I’m here to enjoy life and all of its splendors. I still need to go skydiving. I still need to learn how to play guitar and piano, and I want to learn how to sing. There are a lot of things. I kind of want to be a creator of my own world I guess. I want to build my own house at one point in time in my life, kind of go old school with it.

All of it was hard because it was so new to me and every single flashmob that we did was so different from the prior one. It was a mind-opening experience. You just had to stay open to everything that was being thrown at you. It was all hard.

I think I took my inspiration from the dancing around me actually. I definitely wanted to be original and stay true to myself, so I didn’t want to bite off from Channing Tatum or anybody else who had done it before me. Being so new actually helped me in making Step Up 4 because I got to be myself and put myself into the role. And dancing with tWitch, Ty-Dy [Tommy Dewey], Marvelous, Tony Bellissimo, Kathryn McCormick, I mean there were some high-end people in the dance industry around me at all times. It was the best learning experience you could have as a new dancer. I credit as much as I’ve learned to them because I would call them up and say, “Hey do you want to have a freestyle session?” And we’d have freestyle sessions pretty much every other day and that’s how I learned how to dance, through just watching them, and interacting with them, dancing with them.

It all depends on what kind of role I’m going after. Right now for the role I just signed on to do, I have to be a little bit bigger and actually be really ripped. I’m actually eating a lot of meat, feeding up on a lot of carbs because I burn them off in calories. I work out for a couple hours every single day now, and I incorporate my MMA workouts to what I do now. If anybody knows how to gain or lose weight really quickly, it’s a fighter. If they ask, I could probably lose 10 pounds within two days, a day. It’s not easy. You have to train for a good six to eight hours. You have to be very, very dedicated. I’ve just learned to bring the toughness that MMA has given me to my workout regimen, and it gives me more of a control of my body.

No, actually. The audition process was the first time I performed any kind of choreography in my life. Funny story, the way I kind of trained myself, and I’m not advising anybody else to do this, but I have an Xbox Kinect at my house, and I bought Just Dance video games, and I was trying my hardest to get those things down. Oh my God, if you could only see the videos, that was hilarious.

Kathryn was an amazing person. I couldn’t ask for a better person to work with on my first movie, my first feature. There was such a bonding experience, and we’ll forever have this bond that we’ve created through Step Up because it was just so new and it was scary. I think we went through every emotion we possibly could through making this movie. I love the girl to death. I wish nothing but the best for her. As far as stories, we had an off day – I only had three off days during the whole time with shooting this movie in three months. She decides to take me, tWitch, Misha Gabriel and herself out to go jet skiing. So we go out jet skiing, and we get this tour guide going all around us and Misha is kind of going off on his own and making the tour guide angry; he’s going too fast or too out of the way. So he’s kind of setting this guy off. Finally, we go to this specific place where the tour guide tells us, “You can hop in, it’s probably the warmest water you’ll ever be a part of. It’s the best water, so hop in, dive in and have a good time.” So me, being risky like I always am, without thinking I jump in. Misha’s the second one to get to that spot and he goes, "Well Ryan’s doing it, I’m going to do it.” Then I’m looking at tWitch, and I’m joking around with him and I’m like, “Oh my god, my leg just got bit!” So I scare him and after I just made that joke, tWitch’s face goes pale and the tour guide yells, “Get out of the water! Get out of the water!” I thought he was playing a joke again, but then I look around me, there’s probably a hundred jellyfish around me. I had to swim back to my jet-ski, which is, I don’t know, 30 feet away from me by that time. That was probably one of the most painful swims I’ve had in a while. So, this whole time Kathryn was trying to have a good time with us and she ends up scarring me for my life.

Well, I just signed on to a new movie, and I leave for to New Orleans in a couple of weeks. It’s a new MTV movie. I literally just signed on yesterday to do it. And right now, I’m in talks with doing another studio film this summer. I actually should find out later on today if we’re going through with it or not.