Legendary director Steven Spielberg has seemingly taken subtle shots at Timothée Chalamet following the actor’s now-infamous comments about ballet and the opera’s lack of relevance.
During a keynote conversation at SXSW (according to Just Jared), Spielberg spoke about how much he values streaming and working with Netflix. He continued his thought, expressing what appeared to be support for movies playing in theaters.
“The real experience comes when we can influence a community to congregate in a strange, dark space where all of us are strangers,” he said.
“At the end of a really good movie experience, we are all united with a whole bunch of feelings that we walk into the daylight with, or into the nighttime with,” he added. “And there’s nothing like that. It happens in movies, and in concerts, and it happens in ballet and opera, by the way.”
The last part of his comment made the crowd cheer because it seemed to be a direct response to Chalamet, who said during a chat with Matthew McConaughey that he doesn’t think anyone cares about ballet and opera.
“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,’” Chalamet said with a laugh. “All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason."
The comments caused some serious backlash for Chalamet. Grammy-winning opera singer Isabel Leonard wrote a response to him, saying, "Honestly, I'm shocked that someone so seemingly successful can be so ineloquent and narrow-minded in his views about art, while considering himself as an artist, as I would only imagine one would as an actor. To take cheap shots at fellow artists says more in this interview than anything else he could say. Shows a lot about his character."
Another opera singer, Deepa Johnny, said that the actor’s remarks were “disappointing.”
“There is nothing more impressive than the magic of live theatre, ballet and opera,” Johnny wrote. “We should be trying to uplift these art forms, these artists and come together across disciplines to do that.”
Doja Cat responded to Chalamet’s remarks twice — first, calling the art forms “fucking beautiful” in a lengthy statement, before following up by saying that she was “virtue-signaling” and hadn’t actually been to a ballet or opera.