Maksim Chmerkovskiy Steps Beyond The Dance Floor With ‘WILD SILENCE’ – Interview

After more than two decades in the spotlight on Dancing with the Stars, Maksim Chmerkovskiy is pivoting into a different kind of performance — one he felt quietly drawn toward while quickstepping across national television.

The vertical series Wild Silence marks Chmerkovskiy’s first-ever leading role as an actor, an achievement that’s been a long time coming. Following years of honing his craft in acting classes and appearing in one-off episodes of shows like General Hospital and Fuller House, Chmerkovskiy stars as Jack — a reclusive man grieving the loss of his wife, who rescues a woman in crisis and forms a fragile bond with her in isolation.

For Chmerkovskiy, Wild Silence felt like the perfect introduction to leading man status, balancing emotional depth and human connection with high-stakes action. The series also marks the first time a major TV personality has headlined a U.S. vertical series for the global platform My Drama, which reaches millions of monthly users with a growing slate of 100-plus, mobile-first microdramas.

On the heels of the series’ release, PopHorror spoke with Chmerkovskiy about stepping into the world of acting, the vulnerability behind his character in Wild Silence, his personal heroes in film and why this project is only the beginning of a new chapter.

PopHorror: First off, congrats on the release of Wild Silence. I understand this is your first leading role in a scripted series?

Maksim Chmerkovskiy: Yes, and actually my first leading role ever. I’ve done a lot of leading, but it’s physical and it’s to the beat with a partner. [laughs]

PopHorror: That’s so exciting. How does it feel now that the show is out there for people to watch?

Maksim Chmerkovskiy: That’s the most rewarding part — that there’s an actual product. This industry is pretty interesting to me because I’m just observing, also. I’m taking all this stuff in. And people give me too much credit. They’re like, “Oh, you’ve been on TV for so long, this is nothing.” This is a completely different thing. It has nothing to do with what I did [on Dancing with the Stars]. It’s kind of like changing masters, which is an understatement. This is a profession, a career choice. So what I’ve come to learn really fast is that, as an actor, it’s not just about you. You’re part of an industry and part of a process, and that process includes somebody’s writing, somebody’s directing, somebody shooting and editing it. And then people wanting or not wanting to see it, and then the product may never come out. You’ve spent time, you did that thing, you put out that emotion, but it doesn’t see the light of day.

I am privy to being able to take my art and have the stage and the audience in my professional dance career, and I’ve always respected that. I put a lot of value on that. You get to have people come and sit and watch you do stuff. So now that Wild Silence came out, I’m like, “This is what it’s all about,” because there’s so many steps business-wise and otherwise that so many projects don’t even see the light of day. It’s very exciting to have people see it and then say, “This was great. You did a great job,” because, obviously, my self-judgement is not correct. You want to hear that it works and I’m definitely motivated to do more.

PopHorror: Do you remember your first day on set? Were there any nerves or did it come pretty naturally?

Maksim Chmerkovskiy: Yes and no. I mean, I’m 46 and I’ve done a lot of stuff. It’s more responsibility. But it’s also like, you’re already here. You’ve made all these steps, now you’ve got to deliver, so you better go do that thing. That’s my personal dialogue. It’s not like, “Oh, my God, what are we doing to do?” It’s more like, “Well, we’re here. Let’s do it.” I think it was more just curiosity. I was learning on the job a lot of things. I am familiar with the camera, the crew, the stage, the set, and I’ve done some filming before and so I understand it. But then you get thrown into being the lead character and so there’s a lot of extra work going on, a lot of extra dialogue, a lot of extra things that you may need and require so you’re not just standing on the side waiting to be spoken to. And I had a fantastic relationship with the director, who also wrote the script and the story. So it was interesting. It was very important to me to do it right, and this was very, very right.

PopHorror: What attracted you to the role of Jack and this story as a whole?

Maksim Chmerkovskiy: I saw an interview with Jake Gyllenhaal when he did Southpaw. I think he’s a fantastic actor. He’s one of those professionals. And so he did that interview on ESPN and obviously it’s a sports network, right? He’s playing a boxer. The interviewer is all about the boxing part of it, like, “What made you decide to take that role? Is it your love for boxing? Are you a fan?” And he’s like, “Well, actually, in the story what intrigued me was that it’s the father and daughter, the whole tragedy that happens and everything else.” He took the role of a man that lives through that situation. It wasn’t about, “Oh, I get to be a boxer.” That stuck with me.

When I was reading this script, I was like, “Damn, this is great. This guy’s going through a lot and he’s gone through a lot. He’s done a lot of things.” I remember thinking about Jake saying that it was about the father and daughter connection. Wild Silence is action packed with a lot of fighting, but it’s also drama and going through some emotions. That part, to me, was very exciting. I get to draw from personal experiences, do the work on the character, try to see how far I can go. It feels like therapy, to be honest with you, when you do it right. So I had a great time getting into the character. I loved being able to start with someone like Jack. I would shy away from dance movies as my first leading role. I think I got lucky with this one, not somebody in a suit with city vibes. This was perfect. It was Jack and Camilla (Alexandria Watts, Taste of You 2025), a couple of bad guys, the woods. It was amazing.

PopHorror: And the whole concept of the My Drama app is so fascinating, with each episode only being a minute or so long. In that format, we dive into Jack and Camilla’s story immediately — within, like, six minutes, she’s already riffling through his past. What was it like to jump right into the storyline?

Maksim Chmerkovskiy: There’s our perspective as the people that are in it, who live this out, and then there’s the perspective of the people watching this. It does start quickly, but to me, it still felt coherent and that there was a lead up. It starts with the now and then dives into the past that she’s digging up. She stumbles across some stuff. He tells her, “Don’t open this door,” and she obviously pries it open. It was very humanly written. And with the one-minute episodes, I didn’t know how to feel about that. I wasn’t familiar with vertical drama series. But I just read the script and loved the whole thing.

I also got lucky with Mila Pohrebys’ka, our director, who was fantastic, because she understands the vertical world as well as the storytelling world. So she was trying to convey this traditionally told story through this vertical medium, but without losing the integrity. It’s not just a one-minute soap opera type of show. Back in the day, when soap operas first started, they were frowned upon. It was like, “This isn’t it. There’s no storyline. There’s nothing.” And so this is kind of how the vertical world is being looked at. One of the people that I go to for acting work, they were like, “Oh, it’s like soft porn.” I was like, “I don’t think so…” I was happy to be part of what Mila put together — a fantastic story within the vertical format — while the producers and crew that were filming it were also trying to put together a very real feature. I was in great hands as my first opportunity and I can’t wait to do more.

PopHorror: Have you caught the acting bug now?

Maksim Chmerkovskiy: I’ve caught it before, and then kids and family happened. So this isn’t completely new and strange. I’ve just been taking lessons and going to classes for the past 13 years. It was kind of my personal thing that I kept to myself when kids happened. I had opportunities, like an episode here and there, but I never gave it a serious thought. When this opportunity came about, I was like, “Damn, I must have done something right. This is great.” Now, it’s absolutely a direction that I would love to see myself go into and, as we speak, I’m taking those steps.