Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet is at the centre of a controversy after he took a jab at the creative arts during an interview with Matthew McConaughey.
The Marty Supreme star, who is up for Best Actor and Best Picture at the 98th Academy Awards, said “no one cares” about opera and ballet during a town hall event produced by Variety and CNN, which aired last month.
“I admire people, and I’ve done it myself, who go on a talk show and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to keep movie theatres alive, we’ve gotta keep this genre alive’,” he said.
“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.
“I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera where it’s like, ‘Hey! Keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore.'”
“All respect to the ballet and opera people out there … I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I’m taking shots for no reason.”
The clip resurfaced online this week, sparking a string of disappointed replies from professionals in both fields.
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Irish Opera singer Seán Tester took to Instagram, calling the actor’s comments “the kind of reductive take you hear when popularity is mistaken for cultural value”.
“They are not outdated art forms. They are living ones, constantly reinterpreted, constantly evolving … It’s always fascinating when artists with global platforms dismiss opera and ballet as irrelevant.
“Opera and ballet have survived wars … To call these art forms irrelevant says far less about the art itself than it does about how little time someone has spent truly experiencing it.”
US opera singer Isabel Leonard also took the the social media platform to address Chalamet’s comments.
“Honestly, I’m shocked that someone so seemingly successful can be so ineloquent and narrow-minded in his views about art while considering himself as an artist as I would only imagine one would as an actor,” she 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.”
The Royal Ballet released a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, saying “ballet and opera have never existed in isolation — they have continually informed, inspired, and elevated other art forms.”
“Their influence can be felt across theatre, film, contemporary music, fashion, and beyond,” they continued.
“For centuries, these disciplines have shaped the way artists create and audiences experience culture, and today millions of people around the world continue to enjoy and engage with them.”
Bad press or major public backlash can negatively impact the chances of winning an Oscar.
With the award show just around the corner, the Oscar hopeful would be getting nervous about his potential win after months of campaigning.
Fellow Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley is also in the middle of a controversy for saying she told her husband, Freddie Sorensen, to get rid of his cats.
The star, who is up for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Hamnet, said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that she had given her husband an ultimatum to get rid of his cats before she moved in with him.
The interview from November resurfaced this week.
“My husband, when I started dating him, he had two cats… This is bad as well. I’m gonna get cancelled,” she said.
“One of the cats was like a pedigree model b***h, and she staged a coup against me. I’d come home, and there’d just be poo on my pillow. And I was like, “it’s me or the cats”. But I won!'”
She backtracked her comments on the Jimmy Fallon show, adding: “I need to clarify something for all cat lovers in the world.
“I am a lover of cats. I woke up this morning to the world thinking I really don’t love cats and it really weighed on me all day. I felt sick.
“I want to just tell cat people, I actually auditioned to be a cat once.
“And there’s been misconceptions because of an interview that I did.”
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