TG: Born in Great Britain, your first dream was to become a dancer. What was the impetus?

JS: My mother tells me that from the time I was first able to walk, I was dancing in the kitchen, knocking everything over. When I attended my first school, primary school, I was singled out from all the other children because I had flat feet and a speech impediment. I was told that I had to do remedial work, that I had to come to school earlier to do flat feet exercises, which consisted of walking on the outside of your feet. My parents were told that dancing would be good for me so they enrolled me in a dance class. That was it. I immediately fell in love with ballet and decided that I wanted to become a prima ballerina. From the earliest time I can remember, from the age of five or six, that was all I wanted to be. I was completely focused. Other children were into dolls and sports; I was totally into dancing. It came to me naturally. I just loved to dance.

I began entering competitions but my parents were very much against my becoming a professional dancer. That is not the life they envisioned for me. I was sent to a regular girls' school and I had a terrible time. I was constantly teased because of my love of ballet. The students were all very academic and very sporty and I was not - I was more into the arts. I lived for the moment I could go to my ballet classes. Eventually my parents were told that l had potential, and I was sent to try out for the Royal Ballet. I didn't get in.

My father was a doctor and that same year he answered an ad in a medical journal from a professor of obstetrics and gynecology in Seged, in Communist Hungary. He had three daughters, like my father did and wanted to send his girls to England so they could learn English. This was during the time of the Iron Curtain, when nobody went to Hungary.

My father decided I could go, so I went by myself to Hungary at the age of 12. I was pretty terrified. I found myself unable to communicate, eating raw bacon fat, and living off the candy that I had brought with me. I learned to speak a little Hungarian and learned the names of foods that I liked. While I was there, the head of the Hungarian State Ballet saw me on the beach, asked who I was, and immediately offered me a place in the ballet school. My parents were totally against this, but they reluctantly allowed me to come home and audition for another ballet school in England, a school that was more of a theatre arts school, offering more than just classical ballet.

I was taught modern dance, choreography, singing - so many things. The school was called the Arts Educational Trust. I studied everything from fashion design to fine art, to the history of theatre and ballet. I sang, learned opera, played instruments, studied musical comedy and learned how to tap dance. . I learned national folk dance and ballroom dancing. You name it, I did it! Because of that amazing background, I can pretty much play any role I want to play.


I was injured in a dance class when I was about 15, having danced with the London Festival Ballet and the Kirov Ballet from Russia, as a member of the, Quarter Ballet. My knees were so badly injured that I segued into the theatre program. Because of the injury, I realized that I was not going to make it as a prima ballerina. The headmistress took me aside and told me to do more theatre and ballet.


Fortunately, at that same time I met Franco Zeffirelli, just the day before Romeo and Juliet came out. He was going to do another movie entitled Roman Holiday, and I met him to discuss playing the lead in that movie. Of course they never made the film, but I was screen tested by Franco Zeffirelli and that was my first experience in film.