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Timothée Chalamet attends the 32nd annual Actor Awards, March 1, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
With less than a week to go before the 2026 Oscars, Timothée Chalamet is facing backlash for comments he made about opera and ballet in a recent interview.
The actor has specifically been criticized by some in the arts community for saying “no one cares” about ballet and opera, suggesting they are dying arts.
“I admire people — and I’ve done it myself — [who] go on a talk show and go, ‘Hey, we gotta keep movie theaters alive, you know, we gotta keep this genre alive,'” Chalamet said during a town hall with Matthew McConaughey in late February, presented by CNN and Variety. “And I don’t wanna be working in ballet or opera or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,’ even though it’s like, no one cares about this anymore.”
Chalamet quickly added, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there,” as the crowd laughed.
“I just lost 14 cents in viewership,” he said.
Megan Fairchild, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet, responded to Chalamet’s comments on Instagram last week, sharing a video of herself alongside a caption that read in part, “Artists supporting artists matters. None of these paths are easy, and there’s no need to put ballet or opera down along the way.”
“Ballet and opera aren’t niche hobbies people opt out of for fame,” Fairchild said in the video. “They’re disciplines you can only enter if you have the rare ability for them in the first place.”
Conductor Alondra de la Parra also joined the chorus of pushback in a viral Instagram video in which she walks out of a prop coffin, saying jokingly, “I’m coming out of my coffin, because… we’re dead.”
The Seattle Opera, meanwhile, seized on Chalamet’s comments as an opportunity to promote its production of “Carmen,” giving operagoers 14% off tickets with the promo code “TIMOTHEE.”
“Timmy, you’re welcome to use it too,” the company wrote in the caption of an Instagram post Friday.
Chalamet has previously spoken about his family’s own history in the arts, particularly his mother’s, grandmother’s and sister’s ballet careers.
“I grew up backstage at the New York City Ballet. My grandmother danced in the New York City Ballet, my mother danced in the New York City Ballet, my sister danced in the New York City Ballet,” he said in an interview last December promoting Marty Supreme, which has since resurfaced online.
The pushback comes just days ahead of the 98th Academy Awards, which take place Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Chalamet has been on a roll this award season, winning best actor statuettes at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and more.
Chalamet started off award season as the Oscar favorite for lead actor, though in recent weeks Sinners star Michael B. Jordan has emerged as another strong contender.
Kelley Carter, ABC News entertainment contributor, pointed to the timing of the backlash to Chalamet’s February town hall remarks, saying it is important to keep in mind that “awards season is a political campaign.”
“While you’re not going to see outright smear campaigns, you are going to see people resurfacing maybe unfavorable interviews at times,” she said.
ABC News has reached out to Chalamet’s representatives for comment.
ABC’s The Oscars hosted by Conan O’Brien. ((Disney/Mark Seliger)
The 98th annual Academy Awards went down in Hollywood Sunday, with host Conan O’Brien kicking things off with a taped segment set to Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” which had him made up to look like Amy Madigan’s character in Weapons and dropping into Oscar-nominated films.
He opened his monologue by saying he was honored to be the “last human host of the Academy Awards,” before joking, “Last year when I hosted Los Angeles was on fire, but this year everything’s going great.”
Noting that security was tighter at the Oscars this year, he joked it was because of concerns over “attacks from both the opera and ballet communities,” a reference to Timothée Chalamet’s recent comments, adding “they’re just mad you left out jazz.”
There were also cracks about the Oscars getting political, joking there’s an alternate Oscars hosted by Kid Rock at Dave & Buster’s, as well as jokes about it being Netflix’s Ted Sarandos’ first time in a theater and several about the nominated films, including Hamnet and Bugonia sounding “like off-brand lunch meat.”
But it wasn’t all jokes, with Conan then getting serious about why the Oscars are important.
“Everyone watching around the world is all too aware that these are very chaotic, frightening times,” he said. “It’s at moments like these that I believe that the Oscars are particularly resonant.”
“Every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages, working hard to make something of beauty,” he added. “We pay tribute tonight, not to just film but to the ideals of global artistry, collaboration, patience, resilience and that rarest of qualities today, optimism.”
Finally he noted, “So let us celebrate not because we think all is well, but because we work and hope for better in the days ahead.”
Andrew Rannells and Allison Janney in ‘Miss You, Love You.’ (Jordin Althaus/HBO)
Miss You, Love You is headed to HBO.
The new film, which had a secret screening at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is set to premiere to HBO on May 29. It will also be available to stream on HBO Max.
Miss You, Love You stars Allison Janney and Andrew Rannells, while Jim Rash wrote and directed it. Janney plays a grieving widow named Diane Patterson who is forced to plan her husband’s funeral with a complete stranger: her estranged son’s assistant, Jamie Simms, played by Rannells.
“As they fumble through grief and their strange, darkly funny circumstances, buried secrets and long-held resentments surface, but their partnership becomes an unlikely conduit for connection, laughter, and healing for this mother and her unexpected surrogate son,” according to the film’s official logline.
The film also stars Bonnie Hunt as Judith Bibbs, Suzy Nakamura as Kathy, Oscar Nuñez as Minister and Lisa Schurga as Nance.
“I’m absolutely thrilled! To be championed by HBO and included among their exemplary library of films and series is humbling. It’s the perfect home,” Rash said in a press release.
Francesca Orsi, the executive vice president of HBO Programming and head of HBO Drama series and films, said that “Jim Rash has crafted a film that masterfully navigates grief, family, and the weight of buried trauma with a comedic lightness that never undercuts its depth.”
She continued, “At its center, Allison Janney and Andrew Rannells deliver beautifully calibrated performances as Diane and Jamie, two people bound by loss, misunderstanding. We’re thrilled to bring this beautifully human story into the HBO Films family and can’t wait for audiences to experience it.”
