Polunin felt like "a prisoner to the body and the urge to dance" and wanted a "normal life".
When Cantor first saw pictures of Polunin, he thought it would be tough to work with him because of the tattoos and the mean expressions (on his face).
But it was just an image, not the personality.
It took four years for the film story to unfold. It took two years for Polunin to get to know the directors.
Polunin says that he "feels down" when out of training since the blood pressure sinks.
Being a "bad guy" was not an easy job and changing the image is not really possible. People were waiting for him to make mistakes and then were like "we knew, we said so".
He wasn´t actually "bad" because of a lack of work ethics but because of the behaviour, and the media hyped things up too much.
Polunin remains humble and says he probably just worked more than others in order to succeed. He doesn´t see himself as more talented "by nature".
When he saw children dancing to "Take Me To Church" it inspired him to keep up his work.
His favourite steps and 20 years of practice were put into the video since he thought he would stop dancing after the shoot. He had to cry for 9 hours, at this time the war in the Ukraine started etc.
He wanted to become an actor, but decided to keep on dancing. It´s meditative and clears the mind.
Audience asks: "How to inspire young men to take ballet lessons without a stigma?"
Polunin: "Ballet is a man´s job if you take it seriously. I never seemed weak, it depends on who you are inside. Dancing is in human nature, we dance at parties and clubs."
Audience asks: "How do you choose the dance moves?"
Polunin: "It´s a choreographer´s job to combine the moves, but the moves are in a dancer´s body."
Audience asks: "What is your favorite dance aside from ballet?"
Polunin: "Modern dance! I like to watch it!"
Actually, Cantor´s daughter is a ballet student but he himself never danced.