HOLLYWOOD – The Nutcracker without ballet? You might as well have a Christmas with no tree.
Disney knew it, even as the studio revamped the classic holiday story for “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” (in theaters Friday), a modern-day tale of young Clara (Mackenzie Foy) venturing into a parallel world of candy and snow-covered wonders. With the film relying more on the 19th-century story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” than the Tchaikovsky ballet, a performance was written in for famed dancer Misty Copeland, who flew to London for four days to go en pointe for the reimagining.
“They kind of created this part for me,” says Copeland, her elegant 5-foot-2 frame curled up on a couch across the street from where the film’s premiere is about to take place. “I was like, if they didn’t have ballet in this movie, people would be like, ‘What is happening?’ ”
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