Ballet dancing is notoriously difficult and not everyone can dance as gracefully as a pro. These 5 stars have all learnt how to ballet dance, some to a very high level, while others opted to train up when a role required it. Sharing their experiences, these stars have spoken on if they found it enjoyable, painful or just simply too difficult to get to grips with.
Alicia Vikander
Alicia remembers the pain of ballet dancing more than anything else: “I push myself hard. I don’t like pain, exactly, but as a ballerina I lived in constant pain. At ballet school in Stockholm, I remember we had a locker where if someone had been to the doctor and gotten painkillers, we divided them among us. In a sense we were all addicted. After I quit dancing, for a while it felt strange not to be in pain. It was as if an old friend, not a good friend but a presence, always tagging along, had left me.”
Amber Heard
Amber learnt ballet for her part in ‘The Danish Girl’ but admits she found it very stressful: “I send videos to my friends so I get encouragement and look for their support and everyone shoots back, ‘What’s with the claw hands?’ I look and I realise that all the stress and fear of performing had funnelled out through one thing I hadn’t yet mastered.”
Mila Kunis
Mila learnt how to dance for her role in ‘The Black Swan’ but says she never wants to do it again because it was so painful: “The first time I put on a pointe shoe, I screamed. I will never dance again. It was the hardest thing I’ve done.”
FKA Twigs
FKA Twigs enjoyed her ballet training but knew it wasn’t her destiny: “I did enjoy it, but I always knew that my body wasn’t made to do that. I have flat feet, curvature in my spine, I can’t do some things that ballet requires you to do, but I can jump high because my Achilles are long, and that’s an aspect of my heritage.”
Zoe Saldana
Zoe says ballet dancing taught her discipline: “Before ballet, I had trouble concentrating, and I wouldn’t even try to concentrate on things I wasn’t interested in. The barre, the piano, the breathing – they calmed and centred me, and allowed me to learn lessons physically, which is how I learn best.”
