EXCLUSIVE: Felicity Ward shares what it’s really like filming the reality show.

Dancing With The Stars' Sonia Kruger / Felicity Ward performing.

Felicity Ward has shared an insight into what it’s really like filming Dancing With The Stars. Photos: Channel 7

Don’t let the sequinned suit jackets and bedazzled gowns fool you, Dancing With The Stars is arguably one of the most challenging reality shows a celebrity can sign up for. The long-running series has seen countless Aussie stars put their egos aside as they dedicate weeks to learning a brand-new skill they’ve often never attempted before.

Comedian Felicity Ward, best known for her stand-up shows and starring role in The Office, is one of this year’s 12 daring celebrities who have accepted the challenge. She tells Yahoo Lifestyle that while she jumped at the chance to work with professionals, improve her dancing abilities, and become part of the DWTS alumni, she had no idea just how difficult it would be.

“It was so hard, I couldn’t believe it,” she shares. “I had this delusional fantasy that I would like to rehearse for a few hours a day and just be incredible immediately, and I’d be just relaxing in between, but I was wrong. It was insane.”

Felicity reveals that she found herself rehearsing 35 hours a week, which was made especially tough because she hadn’t done any exercise in the lead-up.

“I would walk up a set of stairs and think, ‘That’s probably enough to get me through’. What a rude shock I got,” she remarks. “My hips hurt nearly every day, I got athlete’s foot for the first time in my life, I was in high heels seven hours a day. It was like boot camp but for balancing.”

While the experience involved plenty of stumbles, countless nightmares about forgetting her moves, and “a lot of crying”, Felicity shares that Dancing With The Stars completely changed her life.

“I’ve had a few really hard years, lots of difficult personal stuff, and I just got used to thinking things can’t be fun or good if they’re hard,” she says. “And even though DWTS was so physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging, it gave me such an amazing sense of what I was capable of. Then by the time I got to perform, it was such a thrill and a relief.”

She adds that she will forever be in awe of how easy the professional dancers make it look on TV, and she’s “obsessed” with her partner, Aric Yegudkin.

“Let me take this opportunity to say how deeply, incredibly, stupendously great every dancer on that show is,” she gushes. “How patient and kind they are. How they have to be dancers, choreographers, teachers, partners, performers, therapists, and friends to a new person every season.

“Aric Yegudkin is my buddy for life after that show. I’m so in awe of him, as a dancer and as a person. He’s like no one I’ve ever met.”