Timothée Chalamet walks the red carpet at the 2026 Actor Awards
Timothée Chalamet walked the red carpet at the Actor Awards as fans chanted his name.
Video Team – USA TODAY Entertainment
The 30-year-old actor apparently came under fire for comments he made about classical performing arts on a TV trivia game show.
Who is Timothee Chalamet?
The episode of “Jeopardy!” aired on March 9th. This included an indirect dig at the “Marty Supreme” actor in the “ballet and opera” category. This category included questions about the operas “The Fairy Queen” and “Madama Butterfly,” as well as the ballet “The Nutcracker.”
The category arose after members of the ballet and opera communities criticized Chalamet for comments he made about the current popularity of the arts during a CNN and Variety town hall with actor Matthew McConaughey posted on February 24th.
He made the controversial remarks while discussing Hollywood norms and the expectation that movie actors defend the movie theater business. “I don’t want to do ballet or opera or something like, ‘Hey, let’s keep this going even though no one cares about it anymore.'”
“I salute everyone involved in ballet and opera,” he added. Immediately after making these comments, he quipped, “The ratings just went down by 14 cents. They just filmed it for no reason.”
Chalamet is one of five actors nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards, which will be held on Sunday, March 15, for his performance in Marty Supreme.
Commenters praise Jeopardy shades for Timothée Chalamet
Chalamet’s indirect roast was praised in the comments section of “Jeopardy!” Instagram post. “A crisis for the arts. I’ve got your back,” one user wrote.
Another commented, “When Jeopardy is throwing shade at you, you know you were wrong.”
Social media users pointed out that he answered all five questions correctly, rebutting Chalamet’s statement that “nobody cares about art.” Another user praised the trivia game show as a “reminder that intelligence is political.”
Opera and ballet performers react to Timothée Chalamet
In an Instagram video for Variety that shared Chalamet’s comments, opera singer Isabelle Leonard commented that she was shocked that Chalamet would consider himself an artist and yet express “a very taciturn and narrow-minded view of art.”
“Those words that cheaply criticize a fellow artist say more than anything else he could say in this interview. It shows a lot about his character. You don’t have to like all art, but only weak people and artists feel the need to actually cut down on the very art that inspires those interested in slowing down. That’s exactly what needs to happen,” wrote Leonard, who has a residency at Carnegie Hall and a three-time Grammy Award winner.
Berlin-based opera performer Dean Murphy refuted Chalamet’s claims that he had no interest in writing opera scripts. “Opera has been around since the 16th century and is still going strong,” he wrote. “I think that speaks volumes. What a shame that you don’t have respect for other art forms…which of course has a huge influence on movies…”
Brazilian ballet dancer Víctor Caixeta also criticized the actor, defending the legacy of ballet and opera that has “survived through the centuries,” adding: “Let’s see if your films will still be watched in 300 years.”
A representative for Chalamet did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
Timothée Chalamet said he grew up watching ballet
In a December interview with USA TODAY, Chalamet revealed that he grew up watching ballet, as his sister, mother and grandmother were all ballerinas, and that he once compared the dance form to table tennis.
“The more I watched table tennis, the more I realized how ballet-like the movements were and how graceful they were,” he said. “I grew up watching a lot of ballet, and I feel like I incorporated my family’s dance background into this production more than ever before, even in productions like ‘Wonka,’ which I dance in.”
He drew this comparison while preparing for his role in “Marty Supreme.” He researched real-life table tennis greats, including the late Marty Reisman, on whom the film is loosely based.
“I felt it was a great combination, having the spirit of Mike Tyson and Michael Jordan, but the physicality of George Balanchine and Mikhail Baryshnikov.”
