"You look great", that was the first sentence we managed to get out of our mouths when we met Netta Barzilai earlier this week, at the festive launch of the new season of "Dancing with the Stars".
"That's true," she replied with a smile, adding that she always looks great.
And this is exactly what we expected to hear from Neta, the most charismatic and self-confident woman the entertainment industry has ever known.
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Netta Barzilai appears on the new season of 'Dancing with the Stars'
(Photo: Ortal Dahan)
These days, Barzilai is starring on our TV screen as one of the most colorful, intriguing and interesting participants of the Dancing with the Stars the season, and when we asked her how the world of dancing is we again received a very honest answer. "It's hard for me," she declares. "It's not easy for me! And it's new and challenging. I wasn't born to do these things."
Barzilai added: "The hardest difficulty in dancing is the physical difficulty. I admit it. I've been a little annoyed with my body for the past 30 years. I didn't really understand what was wrong with it - and it's a very, very big challenge for me."
How is it going in dancing apart from the difficulty - where is the fun?
"The fun is in the difficulty, in the results. The fun is succeeding in this thing, it's succeeding in something I haven't been able to do all my life, which is to move the way I want. To be free in my body."
You've lost weight, it's no secret. How does that feel?
"I'm going through something huge and it's deeper and I feel like I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, much more than just telling you: 'Wow, I look stunning and I'm having so much fun. It's not like that. It's very complex.'
To the question of whether she is happy these days, Netta's answer - just like the rest of the country - is quite mixed. "A very complex question - certainly at a time like this. I made this plan because it was very difficult for me to get out of bed. To get out of this thing, from this period. Come on, there are hostages in Gaza. I don't have a chance to ask myself how I feel at all. Everything we do here is for kind of raising your head and breathing a bit of air."