Timothée Chalamet may be one of Hollywood’s most sought-after young actors, but his recent thoughts on other realms of the performing arts aren’t likely to win him new fans.

Last week, Chalamet dropped by the University of Texas at Austin to be interviewed by his “Interstellar” co-star, Matthew McConaughey, for a Variety & CNN town hall.

Over the course of the chat, the pair spoke candidly about a number of hot-button topics in the film industry. When the discussion turned to movie studios’ push to get “their biggest action set pieces up front” in order to compete with audiences’ shrinking attention spans, Chalamet offered an eyebrow-raising take.

“Some people do want to be entertained and quickly,” he said, after referring to Netflix’s “Frankenstein” as a slower-paced film that was successful. “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.”

“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,” he continued.

After the crowd responded with laughter, Chalamet quipped, “I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason.”

It wasn’t long, however, before a host of ballet and opera performers began calling out Chalamet and expressing their disappointment in his disparaging views on their art forms.

Amar Smalls, a professional ballet dancer and choreographer, acknowledged the inaccessibility of ballet and opera for many audiences in an Instagram video Thursday, but said Chalamet was wrong to draw parallels between them to his experience in film.

“Tickets for the movies that Timothée is in are cheap compared to ‘Porgy and Bess’ and ‘Swan Lake,‘” he said in part, later adding: “AI can’t go onstage and give a beautiful performance like ‘Swan Lake.’ They could definitely do ‘Marty Supreme,’ though.”

Opera singer and voiceover artist Eugenia Forteza felt similarly. “Live theatre, opera, ballet could always use the support of artists with such reach,” she wrote in a comment on Variety’s Instagram post about the video. “Choosing to further continue the misconception that these artforms are dead is irresponsible, disrespectful and ignorant, especially from someone who had the privilege to attend an arts high school right next to Lincoln Center.”

And Kameron Saunders, a ballet choreographer who was also one of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour dancers, summed it up even more succinctly.

“Yikes,” he wrote on Instagram.

Chalamet, who many consider to be the frontrunner to win the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in “Marty Supreme,” has yet to respond to the criticism.

His comments, however, seem in line with his divisive awards season campaign, in which he’s deliberately embodied the smugness of his “Marty Supreme” character while referencing meme culture and streetwear hype.

By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.