The rest of the world might have already forgotten about Timothée Chalamet’s comments on the ballet and opera, but not Charlize Theron. The Fury Road headliner is furious with the actor, whose Oscar dreams were famously dashed last month. “Oh, boy, I hope I run into him one day,” the combat-trained star tells the New York Times, in an interview published on April 18.
At a Variety/CNN town hall event in February, Chalamet told Matthew McConaughey that he doubted the ongoing viability of some types of performance. “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,’” Chalamet said. “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there … I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I’m taking shots for no reason.”
Chalamet’s comments didn’t surface in the media until the second week of March, several days after Academy Awards voting had closed. Still, some blame those statements for his best actor loss to Michael B. Jordan at the Oscars 2026.
Speaking with the NYT as part of its “The Interview” series, Charlize Theron said “Dance is probably one of the hardest things I ever did. Dancers are superheroes.” When interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro cracked “Sorry, Timothée Chalamet” in response, Theron turned it up.
“That was a very reckless comment on an art form, two art forms, that we need to lift up constantly because, yes, they do have a hard time,” Theron said.
“But in 10 years, AI is going to be able to do Timothée’s job, but it will not be able to replace a person on a stage dancing live. And we shouldn’t shit on other art forms,” she continued.
Theron isn’t the only person who’s taken Chalamet to task—just the latest. Renowned institutions such as La Scala in Milan and the Paris Opera took turns expressing their vexation at the Marty Supreme star, as did fellow actors like Jamie Lee Curtis. “His comments are silly, and I’m sorry that they’re going to be a bit of his legacy now,” the Halloween star told The Hollywood Reporter. ”I’m sure he regrets the comment because you can’t throw those art forms under a bus. You can’t do it. They’re too important.”
Others believe that the young man’s jibe had an immediately beneficial effect. Alex Beard, General Manager of London’s Royal Ballet and Opera, has said that ticket sales jumped “spectacularly” after Chalamet’s comments. “The response from the public has been nothing short of fantastic,” he said, noting that dance and opera were far from ignored even before the spike, with people “in their 20s and 30s” making up the bulk of his organization’s audience.
