What did Timothée Chalamet say about ballet and opera? The controversy explained.
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Suzy ByrneMon, March 9, 2026 at 4:06 PM UTC
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Timothée Chalamet stumbled at the finish line of awards season.
The Marty Supreme actor, who is considered a frontrunner for best actor at this Sunday’s Academy Awards, is facing backlash after a clip from a recent conversation with Matthew McConaughey surfaced online. In it, Chalamet appeared to say that “no one cares” about ballet or opera.
The remark has been spreading across social media, drawing criticism from arts organizations, performers and even his high school principal.
Here’s what happened — and what it could mean for this weekend.
What did he say?
Chalamet sat down with his Interstellar costar at the University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication on Feb. 21 for a conversation about his career and the movie industry.
Part of the conversation focused on the challenges theatrical films have faced in recent years, including the rise of streaming platforms and concerns that social media has shortened audience attention spans.
“I admire people — and I've done it myself — who go on a talk show and say, ‘Hey, we've got to keep movie theaters alive, we've gotta keep this genre alive,’” Chalamet said. “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.”
He then added, “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 comment — specifically the line “no one cares about this anymore” — is what critics have seized on.
What’s the backlash?
While the interview took place last month, that snippet began circulating widely late Thursday and gained traction over the weekend.
Performing arts institutions responded quickly — many with pointed but measured rebuttals.
The Metropolitan Opera posted a montage on March 5 of what goes into one of its work productions, captioning it, “This one’s for you, @tchalamet…” The Boston Ballet said it was giving Chalamet an “opportunity to change [his] mind.” The English National Opera extended an invite for free tickets. London’s Royal Ballet and Opera urged him to reconsider.
The Seattle Opera took a more playful approach, launching a limited-time discount code — “TIMOTHEE” — and adding, “Timmy, you're welcome to use it too 💃.”
Individual artists were more direct. Colombian ballet dancer Fernando Montaño shared an open letter, saying that comparing art forms limits understanding and growth. London-based dancer Anna Yliaho wrote that “only an insecure artist tears down another discipline to elevate their own.” Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard called it “narrow-minded” and a “cheap shot.” Irish opera singer Seán Tester described the remarks as “the kind of reductive take you hear when popularity is mistaken for cultural value.”
Megan Fairchild, a New York City Ballet principal, leaned into sarcasm, saying, “Timmy, I didn’t realize you were a world-class dancer or opera singer who simply chose not to pursue it because acting is more popular! Ballet and opera aren’t niche hobbies people opt out of for fame. They’re disciplines you can only enter if you have the rare ability for them in the first place.”
The controversy made its way to Saturday Night Live, where Colin Jost noted during “Weekend Update” that Chalamet was “being criticized by major opera and ballet organizations after he said that no one cares about those art forms.” His punchline? That the actor “made the comment on a press tour for his movie about ... ping-pong.”
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Doja Cat also shared her take, giving Chalamet an etiquette lesson on the art forms — and purposely mispronouncing his name in the process.
"Hey, by the way, opera is 400 years old. Ballet is 500 years old. Somebody named Tim, Timothy Chalamet, had the nerve, big guy by the way, had the nerve to say on camera that nobody cares about it," Doja Cat said.
Principal at Chalamet’s high school even had a take
Deepak Marwah, the principal of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, Chalamet’s performing arts alma mater, even weighed in. Marwah’s open letter expressed pride in the actor but emphasized that the school does not rank artistic disciplines.
“We believe that if a single performance, a single note, a single brushstroke, a single movement across a stage touches even one person — it is worthy. It matters. It is very much alive,” he wrote.
He added, “We know your heart, and we know you know better.”
Online, the backlash has ranged from serious criticism to satire, with jokes circulating about “which ballerina hurt Timmy in high school?” It also resurfaced past remarks from a 2019 The King screening in which Chalamet referred to opera and ballet as “dying art form[s].”
Chalamet has not publicly commented on the backlash, but it’s important to note he has a connection to the dance world: His mother, Nicole Flender, and sister, Pauline Chalamet, trained at the School of American Ballet.
A resurfaced clip from an interview he did on the Marty Surpreme press tour shows him talking about how his grandmother, mother and sister all danced in the New York City Ballet. He described spending time backstage at the David H. Koch Theater.
“I grew up dreaming big backstage at the Koch Theater in New York,” he said. “I’m like a Venn diagram of the best cultural influences of the 21st century and 20th century.”
Gia Kourlas, dance critic for the New York Times, defended Chalamet, saying he was speaking to mainstream visibility rather than artistic value.
“Chalamet’s point wasn’t that ballet and opera don’t matter, but that it isn’t really part of mainstream culture,” Kourlas wrote. “He was dismissing these art forms’ roles in our society, and is he wrong? The value of ballet and opera, and people’s perception around their value, are two different things.”
Kourlas did add that Chalamet “shouldn’t have brought up an idea that he couldn’t properly flesh out,” adding, ”I think the look on his face shows that he knew better.”
Will it affect Chalamet’s chance at the Oscars?
In short, no. Voting for the 98th Academy Awards closed on March 5 at 5 p.m. PT. The clip of Chalamet — who earned his third best actor Academy Award nomination for Marty Supreme after nominations for A Complete Unknown (2025) and Call Me by Your Name (2018) — went viral mostly after the voting window ended.
That has not stopped the internet from weighing in. Memes — including one widely shared post titled “How to Lose an Oscar in 10 Days” — have circulated across social media.
Chalamet had been viewed as a best actor frontrunner — and he may still win — but his awards momentum had already shown signs of softening pre-controversy. He recently lost at the BAFTAs (to Robert Aramayo for I Swear)and the Actor Awards (to Michael B. Jordan for Sinners).
That led award predictions to shift from Chalamet out front. Gold Derby reported that Jordan had leapfrogged ahead in the best actor race.
And all of this adds an unexpected narrative twist ahead of Oscar night.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
