My dream was to become a ballet dancer, but after a year in bed with rheumatic fever at 13, I had grown too tall, and had no muscle tone left. I tried a ballet class and couldn't even do a plie without falling over. It was my first death.
My only drive was to be the best dancer in the world, but I never won the world championship.
I am thankful to whatever I have got in my life, but one thing which is always at the back of my mind is my dance academy. I would love to see my dance academy growing.
I remember my dreams when I was a junior soloist. 'Oh, I hope I don't end here,' I thought. 'I want to do the ballerina in 'Scotch Symphony.' I don't want to be the little Scotch girl.' And I actually went beyond my wildest dreams. I worked with Balanchine. I had ballets choreographed for me.
I think the inception of my interest in arts was when I was around 9 or 10 and I started dancing. I was really convinced that I was going to go to New York and be onstage in 'A Chorus Line.'
I was always going to be a dancer - I drifted into acting.
Today, dancers have so much more information and are much more mobile. Kids are traveling everywhere to go to summer programs, funding themselves with Kickstarter - putting their dreams on the Internet and seeing if they will pan out.
When I was 4 years old, I thought that I wanted to be a dancer like Michael Jackson.
I've had a lot of little girls write to me saying that they want to be dancers and that I've inspired them.
I always promised myself if I ever got the chance to do a 'Flashdance'-type of movie, I would do my own dancing. I can say with pride that every single dance move in 'Go For It!' is my own dance move.
I wanted to inspire every little girl who wants to be a dancer to fire their imagination about the joys of being on the stage.
