Jenna Dewan can pinpoint the exact moment she decided to become a Janet Jackson dancer. “I was probably 17, and I watched [the HBO special of] the Velvet Rope Tour,” the actor recalls today. “I was two inches from my TV, literally obsessed. I had that ‘a-ha’ moment of, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to be a Janet dancer.’”

From that moment on, Dewan decided — as so many pop stars, from Britney Spears to Jennifer Lopez, did and would in the future — that Jackson would be her one-woman “vision board” for her career as a dancer-performer. She moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California, “but really so that I could be dance auditioning.” Eventually, that included an open call for Jackson’s “Doesn’t Really Matter” music video in 2000, where Dewan was chosen as one of four female dancers added to the ensemble for the innovative clip — now well-known for its shifting, moving stage which required the dancers to be suspended from pulleys.

Dewan remembers it being a bit like being thrown into the deep end of Janet dancer life — weeks of rehearsals, 23-hour days — but completely worth it: “It was literally making art — insane.” And it kicked off a working relationship that took Dewan to the “All for You” music video and tour of the same name and about two years of dancing for Jackson.

“Janet

Inside Jenna Dewan on Janet Jackson's Most Iconic Dance Moments