Luca Guadagnino defends Timothée Chalamet over opera and ballet remarks: ‘How can one comment become a planetary polemic?’

The director, who cast Chalamet in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name, spoke out in the actor’s defence ahead of the premiere of his staging of opera The Death of Klinghoffer

The director Luca Guadagnino has defended Timothée Chalamet after the actor drew criticism for suggesting that ballet and opera were art forms about which “no one cares about” any more.

Speaking to Italian newspaper La Stampa ahead of the premiere of his staging of the opera The Death of Klinghoffer in Florence, the director said reaction to Chalamet’s comments was disproportionate.

“I am not on social media and don’t understand how one [single] comment can become a planetary polemic,” said Guadagnino.

The director cast Chalamet in the actor’s breakthrough role, in 2017’s Call Me By Your Name, which earned him his first Oscar nomination. Guadagnino, who made his opera debut in 2011 with a production of Verdi’s Falstaff, conceded the actor “could have spared himself … but he’s young, smart, sensitive, and he fears that cinema could become marginal. And that’s why every form of imagination should be nurtured.” He added, “We must unite the arts, not separate them.”