"Pettyfer, admittedly the least practiced dancer of the bunch, cites how his relative inexperience helped define the character: “I was initially very shy and didn’t want to move but Alison came up with these great routines with only a few steps. It ended up being character building in that Adam thinks he’s a better dancer than he really is, but it’s his freshness and his willingness to give the audience what they want that works for him.”
Adam’s make-or-break moment, when he is unexpectedly thrown onto the stage to the opening beats of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” was more true to life than audiences would expect. “That was the one scene we purposely didn’t block,” says Pettyfer. “They didn’t even tell me the song they were going to play. They just said go out there and do it. After those first few moments, taking off my hoodie and feeling the crowd reacting, I thought, “This is pretty cool.’"