{"id":604539,"date":"2026-04-13T17:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T17:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/604539\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T17:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T17:32:08","slug":"luca-guadagnino-defends-timothee-chalamet-over-opera-and-ballet-remarks-how-can-one-comment-become-a-planetary-polemic-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/604539\/","title":{"rendered":"Luca Guadagnino defends Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet over opera and ballet remarks: \u2018How can one comment become a planetary polemic?\u2019 | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The director Luca Guadagnino has defended Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a> after the actor drew criticism for suggesting that ballet and opera were art forms about which \u201cno one cares about\u201d any more.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Italian newspaper La Stampa ahead of the premiere of his staging of the opera The Death of Klinghoffer in Florence, the director said reaction to Chalamet\u2019s comments was disproportionate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not on social media and don\u2019t understand how one [single] comment can become a planetary polemic,\u201d said Guadagnino.<\/p>\n

The director cast Chalamet in the actor\u2019s breakthrough role, in 2017\u2019s Call Me By Your Name, which earned him his first Oscar nomination. Guadagnino, who made his opera debut in 2011 with a production of Verdi\u2019s Falstaff, conceded the actor \u201ccould have spared himself \u2026 but he\u2019s young, smart, sensitive, and he fears that cinema could become marginal. And that\u2019s why every form of imagination should be nurtured.\u201d He added, \u201cWe must unite the arts, not separate them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet at the 98th Academy Awards, in Los Angeles, on 15 March. Photograph: Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Chalamet received considerable backlash<\/a> following comments made during a recorded conversation for CNN\/Variety with Matthew McConaughey on 24 February, in which he said: \u201cI don\u2019t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this any more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

His remarks prompted disapproval from members of the ballet and opera communities, including the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, which responded on social media by inviting the actor to attend Guadagnino\u2019s forthcoming production of The Death of Klinghoffer.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome and see for yourself that opera is alive, kicking and actually matters to people,\u201d the institution posted on social media.<\/p>\n

Actors Jamie Lee Curtis and Whoopi Goldberg were also among those to publicly criticise Chalamet\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

Guadagnino\u2019s intervention marks the most prominent defence of Chalamet to date. The actor\u2019s comments have sparked wider debate over the place of traditional performing arts in contemporary culture.<\/p>\n

Chalamet was unsuccessful in his bid to become the second-youngest recipient of the best actor Oscar earlier this year, when he lost out to Michael B Jordan at the Academy Awards. However it appears unlikely his comments about opera and ballet factored into the snub for his performance in Marty Supreme, as the interview only aired as Oscar voting closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The director Luca Guadagnino has defended Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet after the actor drew criticism for suggesting that ballet and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-604539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}