Datapple

VH1 is burning up your television screen with its sexy new show Hit the Floor. 

The drama unveils the world behind basketball dancing teams and is the network’s second scripted series. In addition to starring some newcomers the cast features a few familiar faces. And Celebuzz caught up with the show’s stars in between takes of taping an intense dance scene.

“What’s really strange is that two years before I found out about this audition I was a Laker girl for three months,” recalls the show’s female lead, Taylour Paige. The role of Asha is Paige’s first big-time gig. In fact, she was cast as the lead and shot the pilot for the show just two weeks before her college graduation. “I was literally on set studying for my philosophy final,” recalls Paige, “while I was also studying my lines. It was insane.”

Hit the Floor begins with Asha wanting to audition to be a dancer for the fictional Los Angeles basketball team, the Devils. Her mother Sloane, played by John Q and For Colored Girls actress Kimberly Elise, tries to keep her from auditioning because she was once a Devils girl herself. “What I see is a mother who is fixated on her daughter,” says Elise, “and hovering over her daughter and then has to let that go.”

And Asha is confronted with the dark side of the dance world rather quickly. Logan Browning plays the team’s head dancer, Jelena, and she doesn’t seem to like Asha trying to change the team’s dynamic. “[Jelena] has to be number one,” explains Browning, “if she’s not number one she doesn’t feel like she belongs. That’s why she’s driven to be the center of attention.”

Browning certainly makes commanding attention on camera look easy but she admits that she had to work on her dance skills. “I really don’t have an extensive dance background.” Browning tells CB! that after shooting the pilot episode she took classes every day for a year to be able to dance with confidence on set.

While most of the women on the show feel right at home in the dance world some of the show’s male leads are more than comfortable stepping into the basketball world. Former Superman actor on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Dean Cain, plays the role of the Devils’ basketball coach and with friends like the coach of the Dallas Cowboys and Magic Johnson Cain seems to know what he’s doing. “I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen everything that this character is living.” says Cain. “I’ve prepared my entire life to play this role.”

Cain isn’t the only one with basketball chops. Hit the Floor‘s hunk McKinley Freeman played the sport as a kid and even played all throughout college, so the show’s slam dunks are second nature to Freeman. “We were shooting in Ontario and the crew call was 8:30AM,” say Freeman, “I got there at 7:30 so I could shoot in this arena all by myself. It was perfect.”

Hit the Floor brings dance and basketball together to create a show that’s very different from VH1′a usual programming. And while we wait to see if fans will fall in love with the series we can definitely count on fierce dance scenes choreographed by Michael Rooney, who has choreographed for Kylie Minogue, Dancing with the Stars and the film 500 Days of Summer, (plus he’s the son of iconic Hollywood star Mickey Rooney).

Watch the show’s promo above to get a peek at some of the steamy dance moves.

Hit the Floor premieres Monday, May 27th at 10PM.