One of Hollywood’s most prolific filmmakers, Steven Spielberg, is the latest star to weigh in on Timothée Chalamet drama just hours before the Oscars.
Chalamet, 30, earned the ire of Hollywood after a video of him speaking with his Interstellar co-star Matthew McConaughey caused outrage for disrespecting the artistic pursuits of ballet and opera.
And there is speculation that the growing backlash against Chalamet will harm his chances today when he vies for the Best Actor gong for his film Marty Supreme at the Oscars.
“I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Keep this thing alive even though no one cares about this anymore’,” Chalamet said in the now viral clip.
“All respect to the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership”.
A number of stars have been critical of Chalamet’s comments, including Spielberg, who took aim at the actor while speaking at the South by Southwest film festival.
“For for me, the real experience comes when we can influence a community to congregate in a strange, dark space where all of us are strangers,” Spielberg said of movie making.
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“At the end of a really good movie experience, we are all united with a whole bunch of feelings that we walk into the daylight with, or into the nighttime with.
“And there’s nothing like that. It happens in movies and in concerts. And it happens in ballet and opera, by the way.”
Spielberg’s comments came after Hollywood veteran Nathan Lane called Chalamet a “schmuck” over his comments during an appearance on the popular panel TV show The View.
“One doesn’t want to give this more attention than it deserves, and yet, it was kind of kaleidoscopic in its stupidity and insensitivity,” Lane said.
“First of all, one should remember people will be going to see Swan Lake and La Traviata long after someone at a dinner party says, ‘Who is Timothée Chalamet?’
‘It’s the showbusiness circle of life,” he quipped, before labelling Marty Supreme “that endless ping-pong movie”.
“I’ve got news for Timmy – if you think nobody cares about opera and ballet, I can’t tell you how much we don’t care about ping-pong!”
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Other stars to weigh in are Jamie Lee Curtis, Doja Cat and Whoopi Goldberg, while ballet dancer Misty Copeland and various institutions also called him out.
Meanwhile, The Sun in the US quoted ‘insiders’ as saying Chalamet had kissed his Oscar chances goodbye, in part because of his “loud persona”.
“Nominees who are favoured more tend to be more understated and Timothee is the opposite of that.”
There is also a history of controversies surrounding actors in the lead-up to or during award season affecting their chances of being nominated or winning an award.
Woody Allen and James Franco have both paid the price while some think this year’s Best Actress nominee Jessie Buckley might also have shot herself in the foot thanks to recent tongue-in-cheek comments she made about her husband’s cats.
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