Layton Williams has said if he gets through the semi-final of Strictly Come Dancing, “bring on” the final as he feels he can “conquer anything” following his journey on the show.
The Bad Education star is performing a rumba to Rihanna’s Lift Me Up and the Charleston to Fit As A Fiddle with his professional partner Nikita Kuzmin in a bid to win a spot in the final three.
Williams said he hired masseuses for the pair as an “end of rehearsal treat” to keep up their energy ahead of Saturday night’s semi-final.
“I am so proud to get to the semi-final, so proud and so grateful,” he said.
“If next week (the final) happens, then bring it on. We will do what we do every week. We shall see.”
Williams said he has “learnt a lot” about himself since joining the BBC programme in September.
He said: “I feel I am a very strong person, the pressures of the outside world, putting that aside, mentally, physically, I feel the strongest I’ve ever been.
“If I can do Strictly, I feel like I can do anything.
“These past few weeks I’ve gone into meetings and auditions and stuff, but I feel like this is nothing compared to performing in front of millions of people where everyone has an opinion on you.
“I feel I can conquer anything now.”
The 29-year-old said he has also learnt a “great deal” about partnerships, having to put a “lot of trust in a stranger that has now become a great friend”.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had that teamwork with somebody, I will hold that in my heart forever,” he said.
Williams spoke about the pair receiving the perfect score of 40 in the week after they were in the bottom two, which saw TV presenter Angela Scanlon sent home.
“We came back fighting,” he said.
Kuzmin, 25, added: “The 40 came at the right time. It was the first time that we let go of the pressure and trying to go for it.
“We were always thinking we are so, so close. But we are always just one point away from it. Then last week we just said ‘Let’s let go, do it for ourselves, do it for our families, do it for the people who support us’ and it somehow came to us.”
Strictly Come Dancing continues on BBC One.