ONTD Original: Male Celebrities You Didn’t Realize Took Ballet
Last week, Lara Spencer made fun of Prince George because ballet was on his school curriculum.
But many male celebrities started out as dancers or have a background in dance. Check out some in this post.
Christopher Walken
Few people know this, but Christopher Walken’s first love was dance. He is a classically trained ballet dancer who started acting when his dance career didn’t pan out.
Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum started his dance career as a stripper, then was cast as a dancer in a music video. He met his ex-wife while filming Step Up, which required extensive dance training.
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago and former chief of staff to Barack Obama, was a ballet dancer as a young man. He even majored in dance in college.
Aidan Turner
Before he became famous as Poldark, Aidan was a tango dancer who had a strong foundation in ballet.
Oscar Isaac
Oscar took many dance courses, including ballet and movement, at Juilliard, where he trained as an actor.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Ahnold took ballet classes to perfect his posture, posing, and control of his body as he pursued his bodybuilding career.
Evander Holyfield
Sure, he’s most famous for Mike Tyson biting his ear, but Holyfield employed a ballet coach as part of his training regimen.
Jean Claude Van Damme
That’s right. The action star practiced ballet since age 16, saying, “Ballet is an art, but it’s also one of the most difficult sports. If you can survive a ballet workout, you can survive a workout in any other sport”.
Christian Bale
As a child, Bale took strenuous ballet classes. He stopped dancing rigorously when he was cast in Steven Spielberg’s “Epire of the Sun.”
Daniel Radcliffe
Dan took many dance classes to star in “How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying” on Broadway
Chris Messina
The star of “Sharp Objects” and “The Mindy Project” was a competitive dancer as a child, taking classes in modern and ballet: “I wanted to be Baryshnikov… I was terrible. I still love dance.”
Mads Mikkelson
He plays tough guys onscreen-and offscreen, he was a professional dancer for nine years.
Tupac Shakur
Tupac attended the Baltimore School of the Arts as a teenager, where ballet and other forms of dance were part of his curriculum.
Honorable mentions: Patrick Swayze, who was a classically trained dancer who even attended the prestigious Joffrey School of Ballet-- one of the best ballet schools in the world.
Jamie Bell, who is now a Marvel cast member acclaimed indie actor who starred in "Billy Elliot"
James Dean. The classic star took dance lessons as a child. As an adult, he took ballet classes from his friend Eartha Kitt.
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