Let’s face it—when you look at some actors illuminate the screen, whether they’re blowing through an action scene, getting a major emotional scene just right, or just sauntering into a room like they own the place, you can see there’s something more at work. That “something” is often found in dance. A surprising number of actors learned their craft as dancers many years before Hollywood came knocking, and that training is evident in the way they move, connect, and act. From ballet schools to hip-hop crews, here are 10 actors who utilized their dance background to become acting superpowers.
10. Audrey Hepburn
Before she was cinema’s ultimate style icon, Audrey Hepburn was a serious ballet pupil. She trained at the Arnhem Conservatory in the Netherlands under the celebrated ballerina Sonia Gaskell. Despite her tutors later informing her that she didn’t quite have the body for a career in professional ballet, that poise and grace characterized her screen presence in such classics as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday.
9. Julianne Hough
Julianne Hough’s breakout was as a professional on Dancing With the Stars when she was a teenager. That ballroom training instilled in her a natural confidence and presence that translated into screen roles such as Footloose and Safe Haven. Now, she splits her time between acting and her dance-focussed fitness brand, KINRGY, showing that movement remains at the core of her creative expression.
8. Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez has referred to herself as a dancer above all—and it shows. Before she became JLo, the pop icon and film headliner, she was working as a backup dancer for New Kids on the Block and as a Fly Girl on In Living Color. Her precise, authoritative style is embedded in everything she does, from her music videos to her show-stopping turn in Hustlers.
7. Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz trained for almost ten years in classical ballet at Spain’s National Conservatory before entering the world of film. That study gave her discipline and resiliency that have served her well in her acting life. She’s now an Oscar winner known for bringing nuance and accuracy to each role—qualities any dancer would appreciate.
6. Diane Kruger
As a girl, Diane Kruger wanted to be a ballerina and even trained at London’s Royal Ballet School. A knee injury ended her dance career early, spurring her into modeling and then acting. Though her career trajectory switched, Kruger has explained that her dance training continues to aid her in physicalising emotion—something that comes through in performances such as Troy and Inglourious Basterds.
5. Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron once set her heart on ballet and studied at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. Unfortunately, injuries cut short her dream, but that bereavement proved to be Hollywood’s gain. She has attributed her decade of dance training to her intensity and control of her body in films from Monster to Mad Max: Fury Road.
4. Michelle Yeoh
Before Michelle Yeoh was jumping across rooftops in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, she was taking ballet lessons at London’s Royal Academy of Dance. A spinal injury cut her dance career short, but the athleticism and body consciousness she acquired easily translated to her action work. Her performances, from her Oscar-winning role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, demonstrate how dance can turn into a stunning on-screen presence.
3. Zoe Saldana
Zoe Saldana received her earliest formal training in ballet, which she learned at ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy in the Dominican Republic. That served her well when she was cast as the physically demanding role of Neytiri in Avatar. Her strength, control, and grace have since been used in such franchise films as Guardians of the Galaxy and beyond.
2. Anya Taylor-Joy
Anya Taylor-Joy has publicly attributed ballet with informing her work, stating that the discipline schooled her in emotional concentration as much as bodily accuracy. Directors have also noticed—George Miller stated that part of the reason he cast her as Furiosa in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was due to her dance training. In The Queen’s Gambit and in upcoming roles, detail-oriented work is what distinguishes her.
1. Mason Thames
The youngest actor on this list, Mason Thames, started touring the world as a kid with a ballet company. That exposure provided him with unusual stage presence and the skill of storytelling in movement, which he brought to his breakout role in The Black Phone. Now playing Hiccup in the live-action How to Train Your Dragon, Thames is evidence that ballet can be boot camp for a movie career.
For a few of these stars, such as Hepburn and Lopez, dance formed the building block of their onscreen persona. For others—Theron, Yeoh, Kruger—it was the despair of injuries that pushed them into acting. Regardless of how their journey went, though, the discipline, artistry, and toughness they acquired as dancers influenced the kind of performers they eventually became. In Hollywood, sometimes the most telling acting instrument isn’t merely a script—it’s the dancer’s muscle memory.