Ballet requires movements which are very unnatural. With every step, you do a circular movement of the hip. You turn out from the hip and make your knees point out to the side instead of forward.

Classical ballet is very extreme. You're doing it six days a week, and it's a kind of obsession of perfecting a move. So every muscle in your body has been stretched and tightened, stretched and tightened.

Being a ballerina can be a very unnatural life, especially after you've had children.

My mum sent me to ballet from the age of five, not because I was that into it but because I had really knock knees.

For every dancer, no matter how amazing your career, there's more to life than ballet. Being adored by your audience, it's only part of the story.

Everything is not beautiful at the ballet. It's tough.