Nathan Lane Blasts Timothée Chalamet Over 'Stupid' Opera And Ballet Comments

Nathan Lane doesn’t have much time for Timothée Chalamet’s recent viral comments about opera and ballet – and has responded with his trademark wit.

During an appearance on Thursday’s edition of The View, Nathan was invited to weigh in after Timothée ruffled feathers when he declared during a recent interview that “no one cares about” opera and ballet, during a wider conversation about the pace of the film industry with fellow actor Matthew McConaughey.

As part of a discussion about actors encouraging their fans to go and watch films in a cinema, the Marty Supreme actor claimed: “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’.”

Perhaps realising that his words would blow up, he quickly added: “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there .I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason.”

Now, prolific stage actor Nathan has weighed in, branding Timothée a “schmuck” for his controversial comments. 

“One doesn’t want to give this more attention than it deserves,” Nathan told anchor Whoopi Goldberg. “And yet, it was kind of kaleidoscopic in its stupidity and insensitivity yet strangely telling about where we are in this country.”

The Tony winner went on to insist: “One should remember people will be going to see Swan Lake and La Traviata long after someone at a dinner party says, ‘Who was Timothée Chalamet?’.”

“It’s the show business circle of life,” he added, before questioning why a “town hall” meeting between Matthew and Timothée came into existence in the first place.

“Then I realised, ’Oh, he’s still promoting that movie, that endless ping-pong movie,” Nathan said, referring to Marty Supreme before doling out a withering takedown. 

“I 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,” he then told Whoopi and the rest of the panel.

Nathan isn’t the first celebrity to publicly deride Timothée for his comments, after Whoopi herself responded, along with Jamie Lee Curtis and Andrea Bocelli.

Meanwhile chart-topping rapper Doja Cat also called the Oscar nominee out in a now-deleted Instagram post, for which she later made something of a u-turn.