Interview with Miguel Zarate from "Step It Up & Dance"

From the first episode of Bravo’s Step It Up & Dance, the outspoken, competitive and self-proclaimed “plastic” Miguel Zarate got lots of airtime. While certain cast members such as James, Janelle and Nick loved the fiercely competitive California native, others continually battled Miguel’s unapologetic “You-don’t-deserve-to-be-here”s – and usually lost.

A little divisive, maybe, but Miguel certainly made for good TV. He also stirred up controversy with the judges, particularly Nancy O’Meara, whose repeat critique went something like this: “Butch it up for me.” But Miguel never backed down from his performance style, throwing it back on Nancy with the question, “Oh, do I look like a fag?”

Miguel’s talent and stage presence carried him all the way to the finale, during which Broadway’s Cody Green beat him out for the $100,000 prize.

I spoke with Miguel over the phone earlier this week, and he had a lot to say about his experience, including the betrayal he felt toward the show for the way that he was portrayed in the final edit.

AfterElton: Hey Miguel! What’s up?
Miguel Zarate: I just woke up a few minutes ago, so I’m enjoying my morning … watching Tim Gunn.

AE: Now that you’ve seen it, what do you think of the judges’ final deliberations?
MZ: I think that they didn’t say enough. I can only speak for myself and for Nick, because me and him are really good friends. We speak on a day-to-day basis. We also live a couple of blocks away from each other and thank God we do, because now that the show’s over, it’s just like, “Whoa! OK … different …”

But anyhoo … I think my biggest complaint when it came to the judges’ deliberation was that there wasn’t any. It was too short. Like, after all these challenges where you can never say enough … I don’t know. It was just weird. It was weird that they weren’t telling us anything. All of a sudden everyone was good, and I highly doubted that. I’m sure someone had something negative to say … it was just too Mickey Mouse for me.

AE: I felt the same way. I didn’t know if they had just cut stuff out? But it was, like, 30-seconds long.
MZ: No. I’ll tell you this much – and I’m sad that they didn’t show it – they were gagging over my solo: Vincent said I was creating a movement vocabulary that had never been done before. And Nancy said that it wasn’t enough, and she wanted to see more – and they didn’t show that. But I think they somehow had to justify why [Cody] won, so they couldn’t show them gagging over my solo.

AE: Yeah, there wasn’t much of an explanation as to why they picked Cody.
MZ: No, there wasn’t! And I wanted there to also be a process of elimination, in the sense that, “Mochi you didn’t get it, Miguel you didn’t get it” … But it didn’t go down that way. It was weird.

AE: How did your injury affect your performance? The show didn’t address it after you went…
MZ: Once we did the live show, we still had to do the group number about three more times for camera, and then I ran my solo another two times with my ankle the same way. So I danced a lot that day – like, extremely a lot. And another thing they don’t show I want to clear up really quickly was that when I hurt my ankle, there was still two hours left in the rehearsal. And I continued to dance for another two hours and then I decided, “OK, we should go to the hospital.” But whatever, I’d rather get over the fact that it’s a show.

I really entered the show thinking it was going to be like … a more positive side of me, and a more realistic approach to what happened, and it wasn’t, and I had to get over that early on ... by the second episode.

But my ankle’s doing better; I’m going to the doctor this week. I’d say it’s about 80 percent healed. But yeah, it was a major mind-f*ck. I felt really betrayed by the universe. Like, “What is going on? Are you kidding right now?” It made good television, but f*ck television. I wanted to win.