Dancing With the Stars is back for Season 35, and ABC is starting it with a two-night premiere on Sept. 15 and 16. The opening stretch matters because it will set the field for a cast that mixes sports stars, reality names and people with real dance backgrounds, while the exact Dwts Season 35 elimination twist remains under wraps.
That is why Jenna Dewan is drawing so much attention. Her DWTS bio leans hard on her acting credits, but she is not walking into the ballroom as a stranger to performance; she has danced in Janet Jackson shows and in other pop stars’ shows, which puts her in a different lane from contestants who are learning the floor from scratch. Harry Shum and Julia Stiles also bring dance experience, and that matters this year because viewers are already sorting the cast by who looks polished on paper and who does not.
The broader cast list explains the interest. Giada de Laurentiis and Guillermo Rodriguez are being framed as this year’s Hilaria Baldwin and Andy Richter, while Amber Glenn, Jackson Olson and Ezra Frech are the season’s sports names. Maura Higgins and Tyler Cameron are in the reality-star camp, and Julia Stiles and Taylor Hanson were among the names that had to be looked up. Conner Leavitt and Ciara Miller also came off as unfamiliar at first glance. It is the kind of mix that gives a premiere immediate stakes, because the season begins with people from very different lanes trying to look at home in the same competition.
But the show is also setting up an early correction to one of its old assumptions. Carrie Ann Inaba has made clear that dance experience is not a free pass to the Mirror Ball Trophy finals. That reminder lands with extra force after Season 31, when Charli D’Amelio arrived as a trained competitive dancer, and after Season 33, when Anna Sorokin was among the first to be eliminated. Experience can help a contestant look ready on night one. It does not guarantee staying power once the judging begins.
What still hangs over Season 35 is the elimination twist itself. ABC has the premiere dates, the cast and the talk around who may be ahead of the pack, but not yet the detail readers need most: how the first cut will work once the dancing starts. For now, the season opens with a simple reality that may matter more than the mystery — the contestants who look safest before the premiere are not necessarily the ones who will survive the first round.
