The Timothee Chalamet lashings continue. It’s so funny. Last month, Chalamet did a bizarre CNN townhall where he and Matthew McConaughey pontificated about acting and art. At one point, Chalamet said: “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore.’ All respect to the ballet and opera people out there…. I just lost 14 cents in viewership.” In the week before the Oscars, Chalamet was dragged to hell and back by ballet companies, opera communities, classical musicians and pretty much everyone else. Well, Charlize Theron decided to chime in. She was being interviewed by the NYT about her life, her family, her work and her past life as a would-be ballerina. That’s when Charlize unloaded on Timothee Chalamet.
NYT: What are the mental challenges of doing movies like [Apex]? Because it’s not just a physical game, it’s mental.
Theron: Dance is probably one of the hardest things I ever did. Dancers are superheroes. What they put their bodies through in complete silence.NYT: Sorry, Timothée Chalamet.
Theron: 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, A.I. 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. 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.
Now that we’re a few weeks away from Timothee’s comments, it feels completely crazy that he actually said that in the first place. To completely disrespect and dismiss those two performative art forms, to say that no one cares about ballet or opera, and in essence suggesting that people who engage with ballet, dance or opera are wasting their time? Like, WTF was he thinking? Anyway, I would pay good money to watch Charlize body-slam Timmy. Make it into a movie!
BTW, Charlize’s NYT interview was really good and worth a read in its entirety. She spoke in great depth about the circumstances around her mother killing her father in South Africa when she (Charlize) was just a little girl. Her backstory really makes you understand why she is the way she is and the way she carries herself.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
