Saturday Night Live has called out Timothée Chalamet over his controversial claim that “no one cares” about opera and ballet.
Chalamet, 30, has come under fire on the internet after he spoke about dwindling audiences for the arts during a February 21 panel for Variety with Matthew McConaughey.
“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,” Chalamet said during the conversation.
The remark sparked backlash from opera and ballet companies as well as performers across the world, with SNL joining in on the criticism during its “Weekend Update” segment on Saturday’s episode, which was hosted by actor Ryan Gosling.
“Timothée Chalamet is being criticized by major opera and ballet organizations after he said that no one cares about those art forms,” SNL star Colin Jost said, teeing up for the joke’s punchline.
The “Weekend Update” anchor concluded: “Chalamet made the comment on a press tour for his movie about… ping-pong.”
Chalamet is nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Marty Supreme, Benny Safdie’s movie about a ping-pong player in the 1950s. He has not yet responded to the backlash over his remarks.
The actor made the controversial comments in response to McConaughey bringing up the topic of competing for audience’s attention spans.
“In this day of shorter attention spans, vertical 12-second spots, are we losing attention?” McConaughey asked him, adding that studios appear to be cutting the first acts of their films to get to “the conflict” more quickly.
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Chalamet responded by saying that there is still an appetite for slower-paced movies, citing Netflix’s Frankenstein as an example. He added, “It does take you having to wave a flag of, ‘Hey, this is a serious movie,’ or something, and some people do want to be entertained and quickly.”
“I’m really right in the middle, Matthew,” he continued. “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 and go out of their way to be loud and proud about it.”
He then made his viral remark and added while laughing, “I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I’m taking shots for no reason.”
