Nureyev Movie in the Works

Ballet is coming back to the big screen. Luckily, this time the story won’t center around hallucinating Swan Queens, but Russian ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev. Screen Daily reports that actor Ralph Fiennes has signed on to direct the drama, which will focus on “a specific incident” in Nureyev’s life, although we don’t yet know which incident that is. It could be anything from Nureyev’s 1961 defection in Paris, to his love affair with Erick Bruhn, his partnership with Margot Fonteyn, or his direction of the Paris Opéra Ballet. The screenplay, written by David Hare (who worked with Fiennes on 2008’s Oscar-winning The Reader), will be based Julie Kavanaugh’s excellent biography Nureyev: The Life. The producer, Gabrielle Tana, is also producing a David LaChapelle–directed documentary about ballet bad boy Sergei Polunin, called Dancer (yup, the same David LaChapelle who did Polunin’s Take Me To Church video). 

It’s a team of top-notch talent, but so far, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s been chosen to star as Nureyev yet. All we can do is hope that they cast an actual dancer, because what would a Nureyev film be without some shots of him dancing? I hear Sascha Radetsky has some free time these days…