Charlize Theron recently told The New York Times she thought it was “very reckless” for Timothée Chalamet to claim that “no one cares” about the opera or ballet.
When Theron was asked about the major mental challenges of her past roles, the action star said, “Dance is probably one of the hardest things I ever did. Dancers are superheroes. What they put their bodies through in complete silence.”
Interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro then alluded to Chalamet’s now infamous “ballet or opera” statement, to which Theron replied, “Oh, boy, I hope I run into him one day. 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. 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.”
Popular on Variety
She continued, “And we shouldn’t [expletive] on other art forms. Dance taught me discipline. It taught structure. It taught hard work. It taught me to be tough. It’s borderline abusive. There were several times that I had blood infections from blisters that just never healed. And you don’t get a day off. I’m literally talking about bleeding through your shoes. And that’s something that you have to practice every single day, the mind-set of just, you don’t give up, there’s no other option, you keep going.”
During “A CNN & Variety Town Hall Event,” Chalamet said that he doesn’t want theatrical movie going to end up like “ballet or opera,” where artists want to “keep this thing alive” even though “no one cares” about it anymore.
“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. “And another part of me feels like, if people wanna see it, like ‘Barbie,’ like ‘Oppenheimer,’ they’re gonna go see it and go out of their way and be loud and proud about it. And I don’t want to 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. All respect to the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”
Reps for Chalamet did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.