- Charlize Theron called Timothée Chalamet’s recent comment about the relevance of ballet and opera “reckless.”
- “In 10 years, AI is going to be able to do Timothée’s job,” the actress said, “but it will not be able to replace a person on a stage dancing live.”
- She did admit, however, that “we need to lift up” ballet and opera because “they do have a hard time.”
Charlize Theron has no patience for Timothée Chalamet’s recent comment about the performing arts.
“Dance is probably one of the hardest things I ever did,” she told The New York Times in a new interview published Saturday. “Dancers are superheroes. What they put their bodies through in complete silence.”
Those remarks prompted the Times interviewer to respond, “Sorry, Timothée Chalamet,” referring to the Dune star’s recent divisive remarks about the irrelevance of ballet and opera. The mention of Chalamet’s name inspired a sharp reply from Theron.
“Oh, boy, I hope I run into him one day,” she said. “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.”
However, she added, “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. And we shouldn’t s— on other art forms.”
Charlize Theron in 2025.
Kayla Oaddams/WireImage
Theron went to explain how dance affected her own artistic sensibilities and work ethic. “Dance taught me discipline,” she said. “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.”
She continued, “I’m literally talking about bleeding through your shoes. And that’s something that you have to practice every single day — the mindset of just, you don’t give up, there’s no other option, you keep going.”
Chalamet ignited controversy in March after he brought up ballet and opera in a broader discussion about the financial viability of movie theaters, comparing how different artistic mediums require campaigns to stay afloat.
“I’ve done it myself — go on a talk show and go, ‘Hey, we gotta keep movie theaters alive. You know, we gotta keep this genre alive,'” he said during a conversation with Matthew McConaughey as part of a CNN andVariety town hall. “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 to be loud and proud about it.”
Chalamet continued, “And I don’t wanna be working in ballet or opera, or, you know, things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,’ even though it’s like, no one cares about this anymore.”
Timothée Chalamet on March 15, 2026.
Jamie McCarthy/WireImage
Although the Wonka actor’s comments had more to do with the economics of the performing arts than the quality or difficulty of any particular art form, his remarks sparked widespread backlash, with many celebrities and institutions speaking out against them and defending ballet and opera. The Metropolitan Opera, Jeopardy, and artists and performers like Misty Copeland, Steven Spielberg, Karla Sofia Gascón, Nathan Lane, Bradley Whitford, and Doja Cat all weighed in (though Doja Cat later retracted her criticism of Chalamet).
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Earlier this week, Alex Beard, chief executive of the Royal Ballet and Opera, revealed that Chalamet’s dismissal of the art forms actually gave the institution an “immediate boost” in ticket sales. “The public reaction was just fantastic,” he told U.K. outlet The Times. “I thought it important that we didn’t issue a kind of hoity-toity response to Chalamet. We simply said, ‘Take a look at what we’re doing, mate’ — for instance, the fact that the largest portion of our audience by age is 20- to 30-year-olds.”
