The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat, but for Jason Derulo, there’s nothing curious about his moves.
The singer, who plays the feline in the upcoming film adaptation of Cats, recently invited Men’s Health into his home to give a tour of his gym and fridge. Amid the 12-minute reel of Derulo working out, protein-fueling, and talking about working out or protein-fueling, Derulo also shares a few tips on becoming a Jellicle cat.
WATCH: The First Trailer for the Cats Movie
To prepare for his performance as Rum Tum Tugger, Derulo joined his co-stars (like Taylor Swift and Jennifer Hudson) at Cat School, leading to “five months of full cat vibes.” He’s now a feline scholar and “really engulfed in the cat world.”
What does Cat School entail? “It was a lot of all-fours movement,” the R&B star explains. Throughout his studies he learned to “go from standing upright to going straight to all fours in an instant,” as well as how to coordinate his movement to using front and hind legs simultaneously, instead of the human instinct to alternate.
“They’re not like us, right?” he says. “We switch—right leg, left foot—cats are the opposite. They do same arm, same leg. They don’t have arms, but you know what I mean.”
We’re discussing furry humans competing to ascend to cat heaven, so who can truly know what anyone means?
READ: What We Know About the Cats Movie So Far
The movie version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and T.S. Eliot musical sensation arrives in theatres December 20.