Ralph Fiennes has revealed he had lessons at the Royal Ballet ahead of his biopic about the late Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
The actor plays ballet master Alexander Pushkin in The White Crow, which he also directed, and admitted he was daunted to be stepping into his shoes.
Fiennes, 56, told A List at the film’s premiere in Mayfair last night: “I definitely felt challenged because I don’t come from ballet. I admit it was scary.
“I took ballet lessons, not to be good at ballet but just to know what is being asked of your body. Being instructed by a wonderful dancer at the Royal Ballet was helpful to me.” He also used archive footage of Pushkin teaching. “His posture is very consolidated, aristocratic if you like,” Fiennes added.
The film stars ballet dancer Oleg Ivenko as Nureyev, and documents the early life and career of the star who defected from the Soviet Union in 1961 to work in Paris.
Fiennes said he felt “unbelievable pressure” to make a film about the icon. “Sometimes I thought, I’m really, really stupid here because he’s so well known, so well documented and there are so many people still alive who knew him and worked with him,” he said.
“But I also thought, well, not many people know about his student life. They don’t know about him being taught by this famous teacher Pushkin and they don’t know much about where he came from.”
Nureyev later joined the Royal Ballet as a principal.
He died in 1993 because of Aids.
The White Crow is slated for UK cinema release on March 22
