Dancing with the Stars' Harry Jowsey on 'Uplifting' Time with Lance Bass Before *NSYNC Routine (Exclusive)

Harry Jowsey felt he could be his best boy band self once he chatted with Lance Bass about his *NSYNC-inspired routine on Dancing with the Stars.

Following his performance on Tuesday night’s show, the Too Hot to Handle star, 26, opened up to PEOPLE about how the singer’s presence at rehearsal helped him attack his Jazz routine to “It’s Gonna Be Me” by *NSYNC for Music Video Night.

“Honestly, I was a little bit nervous. This is his bread and butter, this is what he does, and I'm dancing to one of their songs, and I have to look like them and move like them,” Jowsey said of embodying Bass, 44, and the other members of the ‘90s boy band for his routine.

“I was very nervous, but his advice — he was just very uplifting,” he adds of the singer. “It was very good to have him in the room and feel his energy.”

Before their performance, Jowsey and his partner Rylee Arnold's intro package showed them in rehearsals when Bass surprised them to help them nail the routine. Though Jowsey admitted to the star that “it’s scary” to execute the same moves in the music video, Bass advised him, “You need to get out of your head and just perform. When I think about the move, I mess up.”

“Everyone thought I was a dancer but when I did it, I did not do ballroom at all,” Bass told the cameras of his time competing for the Mirrorball Trophy on season 7 of DWTS. “When this is all over, [Jowsey’s] gonna look back and be like, ‘Damn, I can’t believe I did that.'"

For the performance, Jowsey and Arnold, 18, along with backup pro dancers Gleb Savchenko and Alan Bersten, took a page out of *NSYNC's book for the music video concept and became dolls that came to life inside a toy store.

Jowsey went the extra mile to recreate the band's look by rocking a Justin Timberlake-inspired wig and the same denim costume as he did in the video. Ultimately, he and Arnold earned a score of 24 out of 40 from the judges.

When asked at the time if he had checked his phone to see if Bass had texted him about his performance, Jowsey told PEOPLE: “I haven't, but I did send him a photo of me in this wig and all this stuff and he says, ‘Oh, my God. It looks exactly like the music video.’ So that's a good start. Hopefully he enjoyed the dance.”

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Dancing with the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+.