Timothee Chalamet’s snide remark on ballet, opera may not have cost him an Oscar, but he did lose a Spider-Man franchise and street cred | Hollywood News

Timothee Chalamet has come out of the 98th Academy Awards with perhaps the biggest upset in recent memory. Not only he lost the Best Actor Oscar to Michael B Jordan for Ryan Coogler’s vampire movie Sinners, but also his film, Josh Safdie’s period drama Marty Supreme, failed to win any Oscar across the nine categories it was nominated in. The internet is speculating that it may have to do with Timothee’s snide remarks on ballet and opera last month, but that may not be the whole truth.Kevin O’Leary, who played Milton Rockwell in Marty Supreme, said on the Oscars 2026 red carpet that he bet $1000 on his co-star winning the Best Actor award. He claimed that the Oscars voting stopped way before Chalamet made the remarks last month. “The kid is a great kid. He took a bum rap on that. And the way, gave a lot of promo to opera houses and ballet,” said O’Leary.
In February, during a chat with his Interstellar co-star Matthew McConaughey on Variety, Chalamet remarked, “I don’t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this any more,” he said, adding, “All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”
The actor’s snide remark attracted a lot of flak, not just from the ballet and opera community, but also Hollywood voices like Whoopi Goldberg, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Nathan Lane among others. However, some even cashed in on his controversial comments, with the Seattle Opera offering a 14% discount (a potshot at his “14 cents” remark) on tickets if the buyers use the promo code, Chalamet.
On the March 14 episode of Saturday Night Live, the writers took a dig at Chalamet during a skit featuring US President Donald Trump. James Austin Johnson, who played Trump on the show, dragged Chalamet’s controversy while commenting on the ongoing US-Iran war. “We will win this war, because Iran is old and nobody likes them. Iran is like ballet and opera, and we are Timmy Chalamet,” he said.

SNL Trump: “We will win this war because Iran is old, and nobody likes them. Iran is like ballet and opera, and we’re Timothée Chalamet.” pic.twitter.com/BG4xa3WP29
— Lunar Surfer (@TheLunarSurfer) March 15, 2026
Arts hit back during Oscars
The rather far-fetched parallel between US-Iran war and Timothee Chalamet-ballet/opera tiff was also milked in the opening monologue of the Oscars ceremony. Host Conan O’Brien addressed the tightening of security at the venue amid FBI’s warning of a drone strike from Iran, but soon turned it into a dig at Chalamet. “Security is very tight tonight. There’s concerns about attacks from the ballet and opera communities,” he said on the stage, as Chalamet smiled like a sport. “They’re just mad you left out jazz,” added O’Brien.
Seasoned ballet dancer My Copeland’s rousing Oscars performance on “I Lied To You” from Sinners got Chalamet to join others in giving her and other arts on stage a standing ovation. This development came days after Copeland hit back at the actor for his remarks on ballet while speaking in a panel in New York City on March 8. She made hory in 2015 as the first Black woman promoted to principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre.

My Copeland performs ballet during the ‘I Lied To You’ performance, with Timotheé Chalamet in the audience after his recent comments.#Oscars pic.twitter.com/I4LbNbFc4M
— (@CinemaBurst) March 15, 2026
“I think that it’s important that we acknowledge that, yes, this is an art form that’s not ‘popular’ and a part of pop culture as movies are. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have enduring relevance in culture,” she said, adding that Chalamet “wouldn’t be an actor and have the opportunities he has as a movie star if it weren’t for opera and ballet in their relevance in that medium.”
Even Franco-Indian filmmaker Alexandre Singh took a swift potshot at Chalamet’s comments during his acceptance speech after his and Natalie Musteata’s French short Two People Exchanging Saliva won the Best Live Action Short Oscar. “That is why we make films, isn’t it? Because we believe that art can change people’s souls. Maybe it takes 10 years’ time, but we can change society through art, through creativity— through theater and ballet — and also cinema,” he said on the stage, to a roaring reaction from the live audience.Story continues below this ad
When ballet cost Chalamet Spider-Man
Chalamet’s controversial remarks also prompted ballet and opera enthusiasts online to dig out his earlier remarks on ballet and opera. “No woe is me thing, but you start working on acting and pursuing your thing and, like, I started getting a sense maybe it was like opera or ballet or something, like a dying art form,” he said during a screening of his film, David Michod’s period epic The King, in 2019.
Later that year, he reiterated his stance during The Graham Norton Show. “I love movies, I love acting, I love going to movies. I was kind of getting scared when I was younger that maybe it was becoming, like, opera or something. Like, an outdated art form,” said the actor. Interestingly, several members of his family, including his mother and ser, are trained ballet dancers.
Not dedicating himself to ballet may have cost Chalamet arguably his biggest setback yet — A Marvel/Sony superhero franchise. He was among the many who auditioned for Spider-Man around 10 years ago. Back in 2018, Chalamet admitted at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards that his Spider-Man audition went terribly wrong, particularly the physical tryouts of the process.
“I read twice and I left sweating in a total panic,” Chalamet said, adding, “I called my agent, Brian Swardstrom, and I said, ‘Brian, I thought about this a lot and I have to go back and knock on that door and read again.’” He claimed that he was glad that after the success of Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 seminal coming-of-age romance that he didn’t have to audition as extensively.Story continues below this ad

Tom Holland bagged the Spider-Man role, and went on to headline three blockbusters of the popular franchise — Homecoming (2017), Far From Home (2019), and No Way Home (2021) — along with appearances in Marvel blockbusters like Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). He seemingly enjoyed an edge over Chalamet owing to his extensive background in ballet, which lent him the apt body language and physical abilities required for an athletic role like Spider-Man.
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In a podcast with Jay Shetty in 2023, Holland opened up on learning ballet and what it cost him in the early days. “It wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t tough. I went to a rug school, so you can imagine. Like, the one kid in the school that does ballet. There’s gonna be comments here and there, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. There were kids that didn’t understand why I was doing it or what I was doing it for,” he said. Years later, ballet fetched Holland a Spider-Man franchise. On the other hand, dissing other art forms caused Chalamet not only a Marvel job, but also a lot of street cred and quite contentiously, his first Academy Award.