Laura Fox says she is going to go "hell for leather" on tonight’s Dancing With The Stars.
Speaking during a short break from rehearsals with her dance partner Denys Samson, she said that she finally gets to play to her strengths with tonight’s samba.
"I am doing the samba... and my biggest weakness so far in the competition has finally become my biggest strength - I'm very bouncy in all the dances that I'm doing," a habit that to date, Samson has had to try to stamp out.
"We came into samba this week and he was like, ‘No problem. Bounce away. Do whatever you need to’ and I'm loving it."
She continued, "This week we are going hell for leather. I am leaving nothing behind.
"I am going to open up more than I ever have and I didn't think that was possible, but we're going to kick a**."
While Fox diplomatically won’t be drawn on who she believes is her biggest competition, she says that the calibre of dancers on this year’s series is "one of the highest standards that they've ever had on it."
She says, "Being at the bottom of the leaderboard used to always be twos and threes, whereas now people are getting sixes and sevens and landing themselves down there.
"It's incredibly, incredibly high," she says.
Acknowledging a few dark horses in the bunch, she continues, "Obviously you have your firm favorites in there, but at the same time you've got the likes of Eileen Dunne who comes in week on week, and not only is she in character, she's giving it socks for absolutely everything that she's doing.
"The same with Jason Smyth," Fox says. "I mean, his contemporary dance had everybody in floods of tears and he went for it - and he’s gonna do the exact same thing again this week.
"So the competition is really, really stiff and it's anybody's game."
Her close friend on the show, social media star Miriam Mullins, was eliminated last week, following Rory Cowan’s departure the previous week. Does she think the competition has been fair, in terms of who has been voted out to date?
She replies, "Well, to be honest, that's up to the public... the judges do all that they can by scoring what they see on the dance floor but it's down to who the public like the most on and off the dance floor. Let's be completely honest, it's as much a personality competition as it is a dance competition.
"None of it's fair and nobody wants to go home. But this is the point that we're at... there has been tears."
Fox is asked about her friendship with fellow contestant, former RTÉ newscaster Eileen Dunne. With Laura’s star very much on the rise and Dunne having a stellar career in the media industry behind her, does the former newscaster offer advice to Fox?
"We don't go that deep," she laughs. "Myself and Eileen just have the craic. I love her. I love going for a coffee with her."
She continues, "It's mad because you massively respect her career and everything she's done, but there's so much more to her as a person... she's like a chameleon every single week - she comes out and she looks different - she looked about 25 last week as Meryl Streep!"
She says that she and Dunne have "a lot of plans" for when the show finishes, but none career-related. "No - we're going for brunches, we're going for coffee, we're going for trips!" she laughs.
While Fox is best known for hosting her weekend show on 2fm [9am-12pm, Sat and Sun] as well as fronting Ireland’s Fittest Family, she is well used to fielding questions about her brief stint a decade ago as a pageant queen.
Having beaten Love Island star Maura Higgins to one title, she says that it's not her goal to follow in Higgins’ footsteps by moving across the water to further her career. "She's doing a great job and I'm really proud of her but at the end of the day, I don't think that the UK was on the horizon for me ever.
"I'm too much of home bird and I love being here and I love all the opportunities that I have," she says.
For now, her focus remains on making her 2fm show the biggest success it can be. After getting a strong boost in listeners in recent JNLR surveys, she says she hopes being on such a high profile show as DWTS will draw even more listeners to her show.
"Oh God, I hope so. That's the goal, all the time - adding onto 2FM."
With the week that was, naturally Fox was quizzed on her position as a contractor in RTÉ and the fact she takes on other sponsorship-style work as well as her RTÉ work – something that drew scrutiny as the controversy in RTÉ emerged last summer.
She says, "I work as a contractor for RTÉ and I absolutely adore my weekend shows and anything that I do outside of it, I keep my managers in the loop."
"People are always going to have their opinions and that's kind of their business, not mine," she states firmly.
Fox says she has gotten a handle on the massive nerves she felt before Dancing With The Stars started, saying that she put too much pressure on herself to nail that all-important first dance. Since, she claims that she has "chilled out a little bit".
Recalling crying in rehearsal prior to week one, she says, "There was such anticipation. There was such build-up. We had done nothing else for five weeks before that except for rehearse for one single dance.
"I nearly felt like I put so much pressure on myself to make sure that I was going to come out of the traps hot, and make sure that my first dance was going to be absolutely amazing and it was something I could stand by.
"Now, I think we don't really have as much time to think about it. You're only really getting Monday to Friday to learn the dance," she says, adding that she had a "good talk" with herself, to tell herself to enjoy it all.
"So I've actually been quite alright the last couple of weeks... I'm enjoying every single day."
Another change the presenter has embraced is her new longer hair extensions, which she got specially for the show.
"I decided to get in longer hair... because we were doing Dorothy [from The Wizard of Oz] last week and that meant that I really needed to get into character and do the plaits.
"But I'm keeping it long for the show because they can do so much more with it - they can put it up into mad ponies, they can do big huge hair if they need to."
She jokes, "I feel like I'm back to being Miss Sunday World or Miss Galway again with my long pageant hair. But I'm loving it!"
Despite her strong performance as the aforementioned Dorothy, Fox was one of the last contestants to be told during last week’s elimination that they had progressed to this week's show, and said, "I’ve never felt fear like it!"
"I was standing there going, ‘God, this could all be gone tonight and it's over and done with.’
"Being where I was in that position last week was terrifying... it really did actually give me a kick properly coming in Monday morning to rehearsals... to go, ‘I don't want to be back down there again.'
"But if I am, I want to make sure that I'm going out on an absolute high."
Dancing with the Stars, Sunday nights at 6.30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
