Misty Copeland: "My career really is just now beginning"

NEW YORK (AP) — Misty Copeland has already achieved a crossover pop culture fame that few dancers could ever hope to have.

In just the last five months, she's appeared in a Broadway show, presented at the Tonys, danced on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," and attended a White House state dinner.

[...] she's in the movies — the subject of "A Ballerina's Tale," a new documentary by Nelson George.

The offers and opportunities keep coming — but no matter the distractions, one thing comes first, she says.

Copeland was still feeling the effects of surgery she had in 2012 to repair six stress fractures in her left tibia.

[...] there's a reason the public didn't know about her injury, Copeland says: We're not MEANT to expose those things.

Backstage afterward, though, Copeland confessed she was in terrible pain, and she had to pull out of later performances.

The film also includes footage of Copeland's first post-surgery guest performance, with a small company in Brooklyn.

The film, which opened in New York last week and goes into wider release on Oct. 23, also touches, not surprisingly, on the obstacles — including loneliness and self-doubt — that Copeland experienced as she rose through the ranks in the heavily white environment of classical dance.