Jenna Dewan Reveals Her Daughter’s Humbling Reaction To Watching Her In Step Up

We all know Jenna Dewan as Nora Clark from 2006’s mega hit Step Up and one of our generation’s most famous dancers. In the early 2000s, the 43-year-old actress, who just recently revealed she’s pregnant with her third child, showed off her skills as a back-up dancer for Janet Jackson, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, Pink, and Missy Elliott. She’s since been a judge on Come Dance with Me and acted in dozens of TV shows and movies. That’s one heck of an impressive résumé. Dewan’s daughter, Everly, however, isn’t so easily wowed.

Dewan recently sat down with Romper to discuss her third pregnancy and looked back at the early days of her career. The dancer is currently pregnant with her second child with partner Steve Kazee; the couple welcomed their son Callum in 2020. Dewan also shares daughter Everly “Evie” Tatum, now 10, with her ex-husband Channing Tatum.

Dewan and Tatum famously met on the set of Step Up in 2006. The movie earned nearly $21 million in its opening weekend and kicked off an entire franchise of dance films. And while Dewan has danced with many A-lists artists, she says Step Up is where her career really began.

“This ending dance scene in Step Up was, in my memory, is like where it began,” she recalls while watching a clip of the iconic scene. “To me, it was this little movie... we had no idea. We were just doing this fun dance scene at the end of the movie and just no idea that this was gonna capture young dancers and people. And you know what’s crazy, I remember it. Twenty years later, I remember every step of this dance.”

Step Up clearly holds a special place in Dewan’s heart, so you can only imagine how excited she must have been to show her firstborn child the movie. But, according to Dewan, Evie was a little skeptical.

“I showed Evie this movie Step Up when she was younger and she didn’t believe it was me,” Dewan tells Romper. “Then she said, ‘Can we watch something fun?’ She humbles me on the daily.”

That might’ve been a tough pill to swallow at the time, but Everly has since started to take an interest in dancing herself. Dewan tells Romper that her oldest is currently taking Irish dance lessons. “It went from zero to 60,” she says. “She started off with one Saturday class, and now we’re there four or five times a week, especially before a feis, which is a competition.”

“I’m in interviews talking about how ‘Oh, she definitely doesn’t have the dance gene!’” Dewan says. “Be careful what you say, because then here she is, winning competitions and proving me completely wrong.”

Maybe it’s time for another go at Step Up?