Tiler Peck has performed “The Nutcracker” nearly every year since she joined the New York City Ballet as a 15-year-old prodigy. Yet that beloved Christmas classic has lost none of its enchantment for the prima ballerina.

“I’ve done it for 18 years, maybe, and it’s just as magical as the first time I did it,” Peck, now 33, told The Post. “I never get tired of it.” 

Peck has danced nearly every part, from an animated doll to an elderly grandmother to the ethereal Marzipan — one of the sentient treats that entertain the ballet’s young heroine, Clara, and her Nutcracker prince in the dreamlike Land of Sweets. This year, she plays the iconic Sugar Plum Fairy and the pixie-like Dewdrop, the leader of the waltzing flowers, at NYCB, and stars in “The Hip Hop Nutcracker,” a contemporary twist of the 19th-century ballet narrated by Run DMC’s Rev Run, debuting Nov. 25 on Disney+. 

“Ballerinas are like, never on the floor, as a rule,” Peck said about having to execute some breakdance moves in this latest version. “We’ll maybe go on our knees for ‘Swan Lake,’ but in jazz the floor work is crazy!” Peck took jazz and hip-hop classes growing up in Southern California, but she was still rusty. “I watch my videos now, from when I was younger, and I think, ‘Oh, my God, how did my knees take it?’”

But Peck took it. After all, “The Nutcracker” has a special resonance for this prima ballerina.

Three years ago, she suffered a debilitating neck injury. Five doctors told her she would need surgery. She spent nine months in recovery, agonizing whether she would ever dance again. “The Nutcracker” — that familiar, comforting holiday favorite — was the first ballet she did after nearly a year of pain and uncertainty.

She recalled warming up backstage, watching the scene where the Christmas tree expands into gargantuan proportions, one of the ballet’s most famous scenes. “I literally have seen it a million times … and every single time I would get tears. It’s just like magic happening. … It sounds kind of cheesy, but that’s how I feel.”

Peck grew up in a “very big sports family” in Bakersfield, Calif. Her older sister played soccer. Her father coached college football. And her mother owned a dance studio, where Peck started taking classes when she was two years old.

“I was babysat there, so as [soon] as I could walk, I was trying to dance,” she said. 

At nine, she made her professional debut as Clara in the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular Show in California. At 11 she came to the Big Apple to perform in “The Music Man” on Broadway.

Peck actually didn’t care much for ballet at first — she preferred jazz. But during her Broadway stint, her father bought the family tickets to New York City Ballet’s storied production of “The Nutcracker.” She was riveted.

“There was just something so magical about the production and the Sugar Plum Fairy,” Peck recalled. She turned to her dad and said, “Daddy, I’m gonna dance on that stage someday.”

Peck joined the New York City Ballet at 15. Her first day of training, she waltzed into class and saw the legendary Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov warming up.

“I couldn’t even speak!” she said. “This was a man who, you know, I would see in posters [of] in every ballet school I ever [attended]. … And here he was taking company class every day, just to keep his body moving. It was the coolest thing ever.” Even now, after working with Baryshnikov several times — including in “The Hip Hop Nutcracker” — she finds herself starstruck in his presence.

“He once said to me, ‘Tiler, you’re going to say hi?’” she recalled, laughing. “And I said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know if you’d remember me.’ And he’s like, ‘Of course I remember you!’ But you know, in the dance world he’s practically like God, so we all just get a little shy around him.”

Peck is an elegant, easy dancer, who can jeté and pirouette with astonishing speed — and her natural warmth radiates from the stage. Her background not just in ballet but also in modern dance made the sunny brunette stand out and she became a principal dancer at 20.

“I remember when I first got into the company, everybody thought I was so daring,” she said. “If I needed to jump from far away into my partner’s arms or something like that, I wouldn’t hesitate. … I remember my director loving that — he was like, ‘You are just so fearless!’”

That fearlessness no doubt helped Peck pull through some tough moments, such as her divorce with fellow dancer Robert Fairchild in 2017 and her injury in 2019. She woke up one morning that spring in excruciating pain, unable to move her head. Doctors found a herniated disc in her neck. They told her to stop dancing, and that she may never be able to dance, or even walk, again. 

“It was a long time of not knowing what was gonna happen, because I had like five doctors telling me I needed to get surgery right away,” she said. “There was a lot of waiting. I think that was the hardest part — even if I had known, ‘Okay, this is a year and a half [that] you have to be off, and then I’ll be better.’ Nobody could tell me that, so it seemed like forever.”

Peck saw six doctors, various physical therapists and even an energy healer. She didn’t move her head for six months. But after nine months, she made an astonishing recovery. That holiday season, she performed in “The Nutcracker” as the Sugar Plum Fairy — the quintessential jewel-box ballerina role.

“It was hard at first because I thought, ‘Oh my god, what if I’m not the ballerina I was before?’” she said. “When you’re going through a major injury, it’s like, what if I’m not gonna look the same? But then I got to this point where I was like, why would I want to come back and be the exact same ballerina?”

She found that the injury brought new depth and meaning to the Sugar Plum role she had danced so often. “I was so much more gracious as the host of the Land of Sweets,” she said. “I felt like I saw every kid on stage, I interacted with the younger angels differently. That’s what’s so beautiful about getting to dance a role for a long period of time, because it grows with you as you mature.”

Another forced hiatus due to COVID didn’t slow her down either. She spent lockdown at her parents’ house in California, giving live ballet classes on her refreshingly goofy Instagram account, where she has amassed some 422,000 followers. She designs a studio to streetwear clothing line called Tiler Peck x Stateside, co-writes a series of children’s books called “Katarina Ballerina” and choreographs her own dances. On her days off, she likes to eat pasta and watch thrillers and move as little as possible. And she does everything alongside her 13-year-old pup Cali — who even accompanies her to rehearsals.

“I’m so grateful now that I’m even dancing,” she said. “There’s an appreciation after the injury plus COVID, to being just back in a room with friends back on stage performing for a live audience — that in itself is such a triumph.”

Photos: René Cervantes; Stylist: Ise White; Hair: Madison Sullivan using L’oreal Professionnel; Makeup: Markphong Tram using Chanel; Stylist Assistant: Shelbi Harrison; Location: The Box at Industry City, Brooklyn.