Hollywood turns on Timothee Chalamet after ‘uneducated and disrespectful’ remarks

Timothée Chalamet has sparked outrage in Hollywood after making a series of disparaging remarks about ballet and opera.

The Marty Supreme actor, 30, had been taking part in a live Town Hall debate with Interstellar co-star Matthew McConaughey when talk turned to modern audiences.

Bemoaning the poor attention spans of cinemagoers these days, McConaughey suggested that many studios seemed to be cutting the first act of their films to get to the ‘conflict’ faster.

Chalamet countered, citing Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein adaptation as an example of a slower-paced film which still managed to hook audiences.

He went on to say how he understood both sides of the debate but ‘[didn’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.”‘

Needless to say, those from the opera and ballet industries didn’t take too kindly to catching strays from the one-time Willy Wonka.

Perhaps anticipating the controversy to come, Chalamet quickly backtracked, laughing: ‘All respect to the ballet and opera people out there.’

He added: ‘I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I’m taking shots for no reason.’

After the clip was posted online by Variety, stars of both ballet and opera united to condemn the Dune star for his atttude.

This included American opera singer Isabel Leonard, who described herself asshocked 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…

As per The Independent, she continued: ‘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.’

Meanwhile, artist Franz Szony dismissed Chalamet’s opinion, highlighting ballet and opera as arts which ‘take a massive amount of talent and discipline this man will never possess.’

‘I hope he finds his way into a theatre,’ commented choreographer Martin Chaix, who also described ballet as ‘very much alive.’

Reposting the video to her Instagram story, Halloween star Jamie Lee Curtis asked: ‘Why are any artists taking shots at any other artists?’

New York City ballet dancer Megan Fairchild echoed the sentiment, adding: ‘artists supporting artists matters.’

‘He’s gonna be singing a different tune when the live arts are all that’s left after AI takes over. Oh wait. He’s above singing a tune,’ joked actress and singer Laura Benati in the comments section – to which Jordan Fisher and Sarah Hyland responded with clapping emoji.

Calling Chalamet out personally, the Royal Ballet and Opera’s Instagram account shared a video with the caption: ‘Every night at the Royal Opera House, thousands of people gather for ballet and opera.

‘For the music. For the storytelling. For the sheer magic of live performance. If you’d like to reconsider, @tchalamet, our doors are open.’

And it wasn’t just professionals who were fuming at what the Call Me By Your Name star had said, with commenters on YouTube and X also adding to the backlash.

YouTube commenter adasusaatci described his words as ‘uneducated’ and ‘disrespectful,’ while deemaria123 asserted that he’d ‘spent too much time with the Kardashians’ – in reference to his high-profile romance with socialite Kylie Jenner.

‘As an artist he should be more aware of what he says about other artists who work so hard to keep their own kind of art alive,’ agreed isabellecastro1898.

However, others were quick to come to his defence, pointing out that what Chalamet had said was his waving the flag for the film industry, however poorly worded.

Slackstarfish8133 suggested that he may have been ‘so passionate about acting that he stutters translating it into words sometimes.’

Chalamet is currently hoping to take home the gold at this year’s Oscars for his performance in Marty Supreme.

The film, directed by Josh Safdie, has already scored nine nominations, including Chalamet for Best Actor.

This comes after Chalamet lost out to Adrien Brody at last year’s Oscars for his performance as Bob Dylan in Call Me By Your Name.

Talking to Vogue about his visible disappointment at not winning the trophy, Chalamet said: ‘If there’s five people at an awards show, and four people go home losing, you don’t think those four people are at the restaurant like, ‘Damn, we didn’t win?’”

He added: ‘People can call me a try-hard, and they can say whatever the f**k, But I’m the one actually doing it here.’

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