Misty Copeland Says Timothée Chalamet ‘Wouldn’t Be an Actor’ Without Ballet and Opera

Misty Copeland is using her platform to defend centuries of artistic tradition. The trailblazing ballerina publicly pushed back against Timothée Chalamet’s recent comments dismissing ballet and opera as art forms “no one cares about anymore”, pointing out the irony that the Oscar nominee personally recruited her to help promote his film.

Speaking during a panel for Aveeno, Copeland addressed the controversy head-on, beginning with a pointed observation about her involvement in the Marty Supreme promotional campaign last November. The actor had invited her to wear the film’s branded jacket in a social media post that featured a childhood photo of Copeland with the words “Dream Big” scrawled above her.

“First, I have to say that it’s very interesting that he invited me to be a part of promoting Marty Supreme with respect to my art form,” Copeland said.

The post, shared on the film’s official Instagram account, positioned Copeland alongside other celebrities like Tom Brady and Kid Cudi who participated in the “Dream Big” campaign. For Copeland, the collaboration made sense, a celebrated performer promoting a film about pursuing greatness. But Chalamet’s subsequent comments about ballet and opera made that partnership feel contradictory.

Copeland acknowledged that ballet and opera don’t dominate pop culture the way movies do. But she rejected the idea that popularity equals significance.

“I think it’s often mistaken when something is popular that it’s meaningful or more impactful,” she said. “There’s a reason that the opera and ballet have been around for over 400 years”.

The ballerina, who made history as the first Black woman to become a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, emphasized that her entire career has been dedicated to expanding access to these art forms.

“That’s the work I’ve been doing my whole career, is to bring more people into it,” she explained. “So that people do understand the importance and the relevance of it in our communities and our culture, and you see it reflected everywhere”.

Then came Copeland’s most direct challenge to Chalamet’s worldview. She argued that contemporary film acting owes an unacknowledged debt to the performance traditions that preceded it.

“I mean, he wouldn’t be an actor and have the opportunities he has as a movie star if it weren’t for opera and ballet and their relevance in that medium,” she stated.

Her point cuts to the heart of a larger debate about artistic hierarchy. Long before method acting and close-ups, opera and ballet were training grounds for physical expression, emotional storytelling, and the kind of disciplined performance that modern cinema still relies upon.

Chalamet’s original comments came during a Variety and CNN Town Hall in February, when he discussed the challenges facing movie theaters. “I don’t want to 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,” he said.

The remarks sparked immediate backlash from cultural institutions and artists worldwide. London’s Royal Ballet and Opera responded with an Instagram video of its craftspeople and performers, captioning it: “Every night at the Royal Opera House, thousands of people gather for ballet and opera. For the music. For the storytelling. For the sheer magic of live performance. If you’d like to reconsider, Timothée Chalamet, our doors are open”.

The Seattle Opera took a lighter approach, offering discounted tickets for its production of Carmen with the promo code “Timothée”.

Fellow artists also weighed in. Opera singer Isabel Leonard called Chalamet’s comments “weak” and “narrow-minded,” while Canadian mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny expressed disappointment that someone in the arts would “diminish” other art forms. Doja Cat delivered a passionate defense, noting that dancers “show up, they break and they bleed, every single day, just because they have respect for it”.

The criticism carries extra weight given Chalamet’s family history. His mother, Nicole Flender, studied at the School of American Ballet and taught dance for 25 years. His late grandmother, Enid Flender, was a professional Broadway dancer who performed in Kiss Me, Kate and Make Mine Manhattan.

On The View, Whoopi Goldberg addressed the actor directly: “You come from a dance family, and so, when you c**p on somebody else’s art form, it doesn’t feel good”.

The irony of the timing isn’t lost on observers. Chalamet is nominated for Best Actor for his role in Marty Supreme, while Copeland is scheduled to perform at the same ceremony on Sunday, March 15. She’ll join Miles Caton and Raphael Saadiq for a live performance of “I Lied to You” from the film Sinners.

The 43-year-old dancer’s appearance at the Oscars carries additional significance, it marks her return to the stage after undergoing hip replacement surgery late last year. She posted on February 25 that she’d spent the past few months “healing, physically, mentally, and patiently”.

Despite the pointed criticism, Copeland ended her remarks on an inclusive note. Rather than pitting art forms against each other, she argued for mutual respect and recognition.

“All of these mediums have a space and we shouldn’t be comparing them,” she said.

For Copeland, the goal isn’t to tear down movie stardom, it’s to ensure that the foundations upon which that stardom rests aren’t forgotten or dismissed. As she put it, “When you have access and opportunity to be a part of something that can change your life… that’s the work I’ve done my whole career”.

Whether Chalamet will respond to the latest round of criticism remains unclear. But on Sunday night, he and Copeland will share the same room, two artists from different worlds, connected by a film that brought them together, and divided by a debate about which art forms deserve to survive.