Timothée Chalamet Blasted for His Comments About Ballet & Opera

Marty Supreme star Timothée Chalamet has the ballet and opera communities supremely irritated after he suggested in a recent interview that “no one cares” about those arts.

The actor made the comments during a Variety and CNN town hall with Matthew McConaughey late last month as the two Interstellar costars discussed audience attention spans. Chalamet said that some people “want to be entertained and quickly,” but pointed out that some slower-paced films get their due attention.

“I admire people, and I’ve done it myself, who go on a talk show and go, ‘Hey, we’ve got to keep movie theaters alive, we’ve gotta keep this genre alive,’ And another part of me feels like if people want to see it ― like Barbie, like Oppenheimer ― they’re going to go see it and go out of their way to be loud and proud about it. And I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though, like, no one cares about this anymore.’”

Chalamet seemed to regret his comments almost immediately. “All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there,” he hastily added, fidgeting in his seat. “I just lost 14 cents in viewership. But, um… damn, I just took shots for no reason.”

 

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Since the interview aired, ballet and opera talents have responded to Chalamet’s diss. Ballet dancer Amar Smalls did so in an Instagram video that Misty Copeland, Sharna Burgess, and Peta Murgatroyd all lauded in comments.

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“People still care about ballet and opera,” Smalls said, in part. “It’s just that the tickets for ballet and opera are just mad expensive. And they are mad expensive because it’s high art. … Also, we have to realize that, bro, when AI takes over or whatever, bro, they not — AI can’t go on stage and give a beautiful performance like Swan Lake. They could definitely do Marty Supreme, though.”

Isabel Leonard, an opera singer and three-time Grammy winner, clapped back at Chalamet in an Instagram comment. “Honestly, I’m shocked that someone so seemingly successful can be so ineloquent and narrow-minded in his views about art while considering himself [an] artist as I would only imagine one would as an actor,” Leonard wrote. “To take cheap shots at fellow artists says more in this interview than anything else he could say. Shows a lot about his character. You don’t have to like all art, but only a weak person/artist feels the need to diminish, in fact, the very arts that would inspire those who are interested in slowing down, to do exactly that.”

And in another much-liked Instagram comment, mezzo-soprano singer Katie Stevenson wrote, “It’s because of opera that I had the patience to sit through the first part of Dune when absolutely nothing happened, Tim.”