Vanities VANITAS VANITATUM

"If I heard airy music as a wee I would up in my buggy or pram and start bobbing around."

Francesca Hayward, 27, stars in Cats, the film adaptation of the Broadway sensation

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Opening Act

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"She is a multifaceted storyteller an incredible dancer who weaves in acting and singing too." -JENNIFER HUDSON

'She's the absolute heart of the film. She dances with empathy, but it's really the story she tells with her eyes." -JAMES CORDEN

"Her talent and grace as a ballerina, as well as her warmth and generosity as a person, make me so proud to call her a friend." -MISTY COPELAND

Kenyan-born, U.K.-bred Francesca Hayward has already leapt into the highest echelons of classical dance, performing some of the most coveted roles as a principal at the Royal Ballet Company, in London. This month, Hayward, 27, pounces from stage to screen as Victoria the white cat in Tom Hooper's film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, leading an all-star cast that includes Judi Dench, Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, and James Corden. Here, some insights gleaned from a conversation with the film's prima ballerina.

SHE WAS BORN in Nairobi before moving to West Sussex at the age of two, when she first found her fancy footing. "When I was a wee baby, if I heard any music, I would just get up in my buggy or my pram and start bobbing around."

SHE'S THE FIRST dancer in her family, one that is split between the theatrically inclined and the math minds. "I'm horrendous at math. I got the performance gene." A video of The Nutcracker inspired her to begin ballet lessons, and she was accepted to the Royal Ballet School when she was eight.

SHE INSISTS that Cats was one of her favorite musicals as a child, and she would rope friends into reenacting scenes on playdates, with a preferred role. "I would always be Victoria the white cat—they'd have to be another cat!"

HER PROUDEST MOMENT was being cast as Clara in the Royal Ballet production of The Nutcracker in 2012, the same show and company from the video that first inspired her. "I kept thinking, I can't believe it's all come to this."

A SELF-PROCLAIMED period piece fanatic, she would most like to play Queen Victoria in a movie. For classic ballet films, she prefers The Red Shoes or Center Stage. "Definitely not Black Swan—that's so far from the truth."

ON HER NIGHTSTAND is On Beauty by Zadie Smith, one of her favorite authors.

HER SIGNATURE COCKTAIL? "It's Very British of me, but I'll always choose beer over anything else."

SHE FANTASIZES about filling her closet with The Row, as a fan of designers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

THE FIRST TIME she saw herself as a cat was along with the rest of the world when the trailer dropped, revealing humanfeline hybrids infused with what Hooper calls "digital fur technology."

AFTER ACTING alongside Dench and Ian McKellen, and singing with Jennifer Hudson and Taylor Swift, she's stayed in touch with her cast. " We have a WhatsApp group and share anything that's completely entertaining."

SHE HAS CHALLENGED conventions in the predominately white world of ballet. In response to the Twitter outrage over the potential whitewashing of her Cats role, she responds that it's not about the color of her skin or her character's fur: "It's an important topic that I'm keen to advocate for, but it is the wrong situation to be talking about it. I am literally playing a cat, and that's it."

SHE WAS CHOSEN by Meghan Markle to be one of the 15 women on the cover of Markle's guest-edited issue of British Vogue. "She called me after to say thank you. I was on the street in London having a casual chat with the duchess. It was surreal...something that I will always treasure.

BRITT HENNEMUTH