How The Umbrella Academy Aced A 'Footloose' Dance-Off During Quarantine

The explosive third season of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy kicked off on June 22 the old-fashioned way: an all-out dance battle between the titular class and their rivals from the Sparrow Academy, all of whom busted moves to Kenny Loggins’s classic hit “Footloose.” And in a behind-the-scenes clip shared with MTV News on Friday (June 24), the cast revealed how much they enjoyed learning the movements to the song that has soundtracked several a montage.


“Dance training for ‘Footloose’ was so fun, and it also felt so special learning to do it,” mentioned Elliot Page, who plays the sound-manipulating violinist Viktor. “Next thing you know, we’re all just breaking it down together.”


The time-travel superhero show follows the Hargreeves, a crowd of adopted siblings who reunite to solve their father’s mysterious death in the midst of an incoming apocalypse. While doing so, the cast became well-versed in shooting dance scenes. Season 1 showed Luther (Tom Hopper) and Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) romantically slow-grooving to Toploader’s upbeat “Dancing in the Moonlight” plus a montage of a few characters jamming spontaneously to Tiffany’s’80s dance-pop single “I Think We’re Alone Now.”


Yet the dance-off was a surprising challenge for the cast, as it involved perplexing steps and a number of long days of training. “In the starting, any time While I saw the video of what they expected us to do, I was like, ‘There’s no way in hell I’m gonna get this right,” mentioned Genesis Rodriguez, who plays Sloane, a Sparrow with the ability to manipulate gravity. Thankfully, choreographer John Heginbotham, who developed the Kevin Bacon-inspired movements, served as a good teacher. “He is so astonishing. Such a patient choreographer with us.”


In the clip, Heginbotham directs the cast to show off their best moves, especially those who lacked formal dance training. The cast can also be seen practicing their line dancing in casual clothes in the studio. “It was really wild meeting a crowd of people where the initial thing you had to do was line-dancing together,” says Jake Epstein, who plays Alphonso, also a super-powered Sparrow with the ability to absorb and deflect physical attacks. “All of us were kinda so bad at it and then we kinda slowly got better together.”


Season 2 left off right because the Hargreeves met face to face with the Sparrow Academy for the initial time, and Season 3 picks up from the confrontation. The third season was filmed while in the initial half of 2021, partially while in quarantine, so Heginbotham sent the cast the basics of the dance through Zoom for their beginning practices. Rehearsals were scheduled every other day up until they became day-to-day while in two weeks of pre-production.


“It was a lot of hours although in the end, it really paid off,” mentioned David Castañeda, who plays the rebellious, telekinetic Diego. Nonetheless, the complete cast ended up having a good time partying, practicing their footwork, and training hard. “I lived all my Beyoncé and J.Lo moments in that one scene,” Rodriguez added. “I was just living and dancing and expressing myself in a very dramatic flair.”