Celebrated actor Charlize Theron has spoken out against Timothée Chalamet’s comments about ballet and opera, calling his words “reckless” and claiming that AI will “replace” him and their peers before it usurps other artistic disciplines like dance.
“Oh, boy, I hope I run into him one day,” she told The New York Times in an interview published on April 18. “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, 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.”
Theron added, “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,” she continued. “Dance is probably one of the hardest things I ever did. Dancers are superheroes. What they put their bodies through in complete silence.”
The controversy behind the comments Chalamet made while appearing for a conversation about film with Matthew McConaughey at a CNN and Variety Town Hall event at the University of Texas has been widespread, with some people defending the beloved actor and others turning on him.
“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,” the Dune actor said in February. “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”
But interestingly enough, the industry seems to be thriving despite, and now because of, his comments. “The public reaction was just fantastic,” London’s Royal Ballet and Opera head Alex Beard told The Times last week. “I thought it important that we didn’t issue a kind of hoity-toity response to Chalamet.”
He added, “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. And you know what? Our post got two-and-a-half million engagements and half a million shares, just on Instagram. And our ticket sales got an immediate boost. So cheers, Timmy!”
Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP via Getty Images.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
