Something crazy happened recently when a video surfaced of Timothy Chalamet in conversation with Matthew McConaughey. The subject under discussion was Hollywood's business and the pressure to make movies hit at the box office.
This is what Timothee said: "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,' 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 went on to say the words that would haunt him and still do: "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.' All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there."
Chalamet must have known these words would get him into trouble. Some “in-the-business” say he wasn’t cast as rock’s most famous contrarian for nothing, Bob Dylan, when he made the comments but he seems to have reminded the world, if social media is to be believed, that opera and ballet are as popular as ever.
As the clip of Chalamet's words about ballet and opera circulated online, fans and performers of these art forms had no trouble sharing their feelings.
Ballet, a classical dance form, and opera, a powerful genre of narrative vocal performance, may not be popular to mass audiences, some argued, but their value to culture and society are proven by the fact they have a long legacy. Both are highly physical performance styles that require decades of specialized training and experience to master, fans say, showing many people clearly "care."
In one response, Brazilian ballet dancer, Victor Caixeta, defended ballet and opera's legacy that has "survived for centuries," writing, "Let’s see if your movies are still being watched in 300 years."
Here are some positive outcomes from Chalamet’s comments:
Multiple theaters offered discounted tickets with the code "Chalamet." "The Pitt" star Katherine LaNasa shared a video of herself training in ballet. Pop star Doja Cat clapped back, too: "I'm sure you could walk into an opera theater right now… seats would be filled out, and nobody is saying a word as the performance is going because everybody has that much respect for it."
The head of London's flagship ballet and opera house isn't dancing around Timothée Chalamet's controversial comments. In fact, he's thanking the actor for saying "no one cares" about ballet or opera. Alex Beard, the chief executive of the Royal Ballet and Opera (RBO), said in a new interview with The Times that the opera house saw an "immediate boost" in ticket sales after Chalamet's comments went viral. "The public reaction was just fantastic," Beard told the outlet. He also referenced RBO's March 6 Instagram post inviting Chalamet to attend a performance at the venue. "I thought it important that we didn’t issue a kind of hoity-toity response to Chalamet. We simply said ‘Take a look at what we’re doing, mate’ — for instance, the fact that the largest portion of our audience by age is 20 to 30-year-olds," Beard said. How about that?"
He continued: "And you know what? Our post got two and a half million engagements and half a million shares, just on Instagram. And our ticket sales got an immediate boost. So cheers, Timmy!”
Even Deepak Marwah, the head of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York, where Chalamet himself studied, chimed in via an open letter. He expressed to the actor: "We know your heart, and we know you know better." Marwah and others mentioned Chalamet's words come despite own legacy within the ballet world: His grandmother, mother and sister danced with the New York City Ballet.
Timothèe Chalamet is 30 years old. He said something and he cannot take it back. But he got people talking about the importance of what we call “Serious Art”. This is the stuff that is still respected after hundreds of years.
I am sure we have all voiced an unpopular opinion when we should have kept it to ourselves. That is what happened here. He did not hurt anyone, he just embarrassed himself with some folks. Everyone will get over it….
And as for the Academy Awards, I doubt this incident will be as “Historic” as the streaker running behind David Niven, of Jack Palance doing push ups before he grabbed his statue!
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