There are no taking days off. There are no distractions. If I had that, I physically wouldn't be capable of going onstage and performing live theater. It's extremely demanding. I have to be in ballet class every day.
Being in ballet class, being on the stage, being surrounded by my peers at American Ballet Theater every day, keeps me so humble and grounded. Being in ballet class, I feel, is like this meditation for me every morning.
Me in high school, I was kind of a loner. I had a handful of friends. I'd eat my lunch in my car every day in my senior year. I went to ballet. I was a ballerina, so I was very focused on that. You kind of have to be. That was two-thirds of my week, going to ballet class.
I'm a classical ballet dancer, and at the end of the day I want to be with American Ballet Theater, performing classical ballets.
I really enjoy theater. Performing live onstage is helping me to grow as an actress.
When I finish a book, I get extremely restless; I have to aggressively find ways to occupy myself; going off into the woods alone, doing things that are physically or mentally demanding to keep myself busy until the next big idea comes.
You've probably heard the term, 'red flag warning.' That means there are extreme conditions. Low humidity, high temperatures. The fuels are extremely dry and volatile. We classify those in East Tennessee as 'fire days' so if your fire class day is a 1, it's relatively low. A class 5 day would be an extremely high danger day. A day like Sunday would be a 4 or a 5.
There are days where I'm at the facility almost all day long. It's definitely demanding mentally and physically.
I have ballet class every other day for two hours. And for "Six Feet Under", last week there was a sequence where I had to do a whole choreographed dance number, so I had four hours of dance practice every day.
I have ballet class every other day for two hours. And for 'Six Feet Under', last week there was a sequence where I had to do a whole choreographed dance number, so I had four hours of dance practice every day.
I started taking ballet lessons when I was 4, and I was performing in ballet companies when I was 10, and I did summer stock in Miami Beach when I was 12, and finally I said, 'I gotta go to Broadway.'
I knew I wanted to be a ballet dancer, but what kind, I wasn't sure. My two dream companies had been New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater.
Catering is extremely demanding financially and physically. It's a business.
You have to be able to cut off from the ballet and relax, or you have anxiety dreams at night, worrying about what you're going to dance the next day, going over every little detail.
As a person of color, you're in a PhD level racism class, every day. Every day, I'm in a deep racism seminar. And I'm not saying that white people aren't taking that class, but they don't show up that often and they're auditing it.
The particular ballet was not so important as the fact that I was physically healthy, and capable of getting out there and dancing as often as possible.
Waterworld was the best time of my life. It was physically demanding, but it was fun. I mean, you're in Hawaii for nine months shooting on the water every day.