The Principal Dancer’s Career-Ending Injury That Created An Actress

“November 12, 2013. I was ready to make a jump, I hit a slippery spot on the floor and heard two huge pops in my right knee,” she says. “The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) had ruptured. The pain came from my tibia slamming into my femur.” She’d had injuries before – what dancer hasn’t? – but realized this could be career-ending: “I went into surgery, knowing I might not come back.”