Meet Francesca Hayward, the Principal Ballerina Who'll Soon Play Victoria in Cats

Hayward was admitted to the Royal Ballet School when she was 11-years-old, then joined the Royal Ballet company in 2010, at the age of 18. Over the next six years, she was promoted through the ranks — first as a First Artist in 2013, then to Soloist in 2014, to First Soloist in 2015, and finally, as a Principal dancer in 2016. The role of Victoria in Cats typically doesn't have any solo singing parts, but requires extensive ballet training, which of course, Hayward is well trained for.

With an English father and Kenyan mother, Hayward was born in Nairobi and lived in Kenya until the age of two, before the entire family moved to Worthing in West Sussex, England.

When Hayward was two years old, her grandparents bought her of a VHS tape of The Nutcracker, she told British Vogue in 2018. It was this tape, inspired by the fairies and fantastical, other-worldly scenarios that inexplicably made her "just want to do it myself". And she did — dancing the part of Clara in 2012, and The Sugar Plum Fairy in 2016. Hayward still has the original VHS tape from her, complete with £9.99 price tag from WH Smith, today.

After realising her dream of dancing in The Nutcracker in 2018, Hayward wrote on Instagram, "Second & last show of Sugar Plum tonight. Obviously a huge thank you to my prince @acampbell_1 but a special thank you to my coach Lesley Collier. Lesley was the first Sugar Plum I ever watched (on a video of The Royal Ballet's Nutcracker [sic]) when I was two years old so I can't believe she taught me this role and rehearses [sic] me for my performances of it".

This is Hayward's first feature film debut, as well as her first singing role, saying that it felt "like a whirlwind journey in shooting this film, Cats." To suddenly be singing alongside talent like Jennifer Hudson — when she had always considered her career in ballet to be "living the dream" — has been an "extraordinary" experience.