Sasha Farber Shares How He Finally Convinced Selma Blair to Be His ‘DWTS’ Partner

Selma Blair wasn’t planning on joining the cast of season 31 of Dancing with the Stars last year—in fact, it was a bit of a last-minute decision: Her first appearance on the show was just about a month after agreeing to join. And it took some convincing on the part of her partner, Sasha Farber, who has served as a professional dancer on DWTS since 2011, to get her interested in participating.

In conversation for SELF’s January cover story, Farber tells writer Emma Carmichael that he’s always been a big fan of Blair’s, and that he used to get nervous when he’d see her in their Los Angeles neighborhood. “We didn’t really know each other before the season,” Farber says. “I’d be walking the dogs, and I’d see her outside. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, you’re Selma Blair.’…I was definitely starstruck, that’s for sure.”

But during a chance meeting at their local coffee shop—which occurred right after his previous dance partner had dropped out of season 31—the timing felt just right. He decided to ask Blair if she’d be interested in joining the show, but she laughed at the idea of it. “She told me, ‘I can’t dance. I literally cannot dance,’” Farber says. He turned to his friend, Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin, for help in recruiting Blair, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2018. “I told her about the situation, and she’s like, ‘You need to go write a note and tell her everything happens for a reason: You just saw her at the coffee shop, the season’s coming up, and you think this would be a great idea.’” Farber followed Liukin’s advice. He wrote a heartfelt note and dropped it off at Blair’s house—and it worked: Blair agreed to try a rehearsal to get a feel for it. 

Blair tells Carmichael that she was surprised by how much she enjoyed herself and that she shared her excitement with her manager, saying, “I think I actually need this. I think it’s important for people with chronic illness or disabilities to see what they can do. I deserve to have a good time and try.”

Given that the upcoming season was imminent, Farber and Blair had their work cut out for them: “The rehearsals are four hours a day, and you pretty much don’t get a day off,” Farber says. “But I would always try to give Selma as many days off as I could without making her fall behind.” The rehearsals also required extra care when Blair’s MS symptoms were flaring, but Farber says they developed work-arounds that helped. For instance, he says she sometimes closed her eyes to slow her heart rate when practicing the moves. (Farber ended up incorporating this into the show: Blair danced wearing a blindfold during an October episode.)

Farber was in awe of Blair’s determination throughout the process. “She is an incredible, incredible student, and I think that comes from all the acting gigs that she’s done,” he says. And even though they were working hard, the pair laughed a lot during rehearsals. “We would always joke—our rehearsals would be a lot of fun most of the time,” he says. “It’s hard to pinpoint one [favorite] memory because we have so many—I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”