Life at ballet school means all things Sugar Plum Fairies and pretty pirouettes, right?
Not according to Netflix’s new teen dramaTiny Pretty Things.
We told you; not your typical ballet school.
Credit: Sophie Giraud/Netflix
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you come to be cast on this series?
CASIMERE JOLETTE:Everybody in L.A. knew about this project.
It was a self-tape and it was the most extensive audition that I’ve ever gotten.
Netflix
I had to film myself doing a whole ballet class and a pointe class.
I had to do partnering.
I had to do a whole contemporary piece.
Then I had to send the ballet videos along with photos and my acting auditions.
But this wasthatproject, that perfect, perfect project for me that I had to do that.
This is the perfect role for me!
I grew up in Chicago, dancing.
I trained at a ballet academy.
KYLIE JEFFERSON:I wasn’t even dancing at the time.
I was an assistant for an executive and it got to a point where I needed to part ways.
It took me some time to go for it.
I was like, ‘Well, I’m not really so much of an actress.’
I was finally able to get a dance studio at 7 p.m. the night of the deadline.
But they wanted to see me in person and then at the call back.
Was it important to you that they cast real dancers and not just actors pretending to dance?
It’s very hard to find a great dancer who can also act.
They wanted both of those fields to be equal.
So we didn’t have stunt doubles.
We didn’t just film our faces and act like we’re moving like Natalie Portman inBlack Swan.
We fully did all of our dance scenes and we rehearsed four weeks before we started filming.
I don’t think people truly realize how hard us dancers had to work on the show.
It was two jobs.
I’ve never been more exhausted, but it was the best experience.
I know how difficult it is and I hope people will see that.
JEFFERSON:It was honestly my favorite thing about being a part of the show.
Once you got on set, how much of your day was taken up by dancing?
JOLETTE: It depends.
The big dance scenes, we would make a run at cram it all into one day.
Where you normally have all this downtime on set, we never had breaks.
We never made it to our trailer because we were constantly going from rehearsal to filming.
When you’re inconsistent with the work, you put yourself at risk for injury.
I was like, ‘Listen, this is what got me up in this room.
I’m gonna verify I finish strong.’
Did you get to improvise much or was it all choreographed?
Was that fun to get into, acting-wise?
She’s kind of a bitch.
She’s very standoffish and she’s the mean girl at school.
So I was like, ‘Okay, how do I make her likable?’
Those characters have to have something behind them.
I didn’t want people to look at her and just hate her.
They have to grow to like her.
I hope I did it justice.
JEFFERSON:Neveah really goes on a journey.
She really put a fire in my spirit.
There’s obviously an extremely competitive atmosphere at the academy on the show.
How intense are the rivalries at real ballet school?
It’s so competitive.
We’re speaking the truth of the dance world on the show.
JEFFERSON: They kept it a secret, but when it came out we were like,Boom!
Oh, wait, that makes sense!
JOLETTE:It was a mystery to us the entire time.
At first, we only had the first two episodes.
We’d be in our trailers together, scrolling through and finding everything out.
It would be like that every time.
We’d alway just be like, ‘Oh my God, what’s happening now?!"
What about the season finale cliffhanger, did you have any idea that was coming?
I think that helped all of our performances in the end and it made it a lot more fun.
None of us had any idea.. JEFFERSON:Oh, yeah.
I mean that’s just a given.
There was this one place in Toronto called Supermarket would go to every Saturday.
Everyone would always come to over to my condo and pre-game.
We’d go out dancing every weekend and then Sunday we’d get brunch and go shopping.
We were never alone.
I was never alone.
It was just such a great experience and we made such a great group of friends.
It’s something we’ve all dreamed of as dancers.
This is our dream role and to experience that with everybody, we didn’t want to be alone.
We just wanted to live it up.
