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West End icon Michael Ball has hit out at 's careless comment that 'no-one cares' about ballet and opera.
Timothée, 30, sparked backlash after making the controversial remarks during an hour-long Variety/CNN Town Hall with his Interstellar 'father' on February 24.
Speaking about his hopes cinemas are able to survive, he said: 'I don't want to be working in ballet or opera. Things where it's like, "Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore".'
Attempting to backtrack slightly, the Oscar contender added: 'All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there... I just lost 14 cents in viewership. Damn, I just took shots for no reason.'
Timothée's comments have not been well received well across the industry and Michael, 63, who is renowned for his versatile baritone voice in musical theatre, is the latest star to weigh in on the controversial remark.
Speaking to Gaby Roslin on her Magic Radio show, Michael, 63, said: 'The human race have been dancing and singing since we could walk, since we came out of the primordial swamp, it ain't going anywhere.
West End icon Michael Ball has hit out at Timothée Chalamet's careless comment that 'no-one cares' about ballet and opera
'Dancers go out and leave their hearts and quite a bit of blood on the dancefloor because they love it and the audience absolutely are entranced, and for someone to diss that.
'And the training and dedication for opera is extraordinary, the musicality, the skill. And it wouldn't be going if people didn't enjoy it and didn't want to see it and get something from it.'
After the clip from Michael's interview was shared on Instagram, fans wrote: 'Well said' and 'preach it'.
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Michael made his West End debut In 1985, where he was cast as Marius Pontmercy in the original production of Les Misérables.
He has twice won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
Hollywood star , singer and the London's Royal Ballet have also hit out at Timothée's claims.
US opera singer Isabel Leonard took to social media to blast the Dune star's character as 'weak' and 'narrow-minded'.
She wrote: 'Honestly, I'm shocked that someone so seemingly successful can be so ineloquent and narrow-minded in his views about art while considering himself as an artist as I would only imagine one would as an actor.
'To take cheap shots at fellow artists says more in this interview than anything else he could say. Shows a lot about his character.
Timothée, 30, sparked backlash after making the controversial remarks during an hour-long Variety/CNN Town Hall with his Interstellar 'father' Matthew McConaughey on February 24
When he then apologised for the 'shot' he had taken at the art form, Matthew defended the claim, as he assured the actor: 'That's not a shot, I hear what you're saying.'
However, the remark drew a withering response from London's Royal Ballet and Opera and 's Metropolitan Opera, with the latter retaliating by posting a montage of its employees hard at work.
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Written over the top was the telling comment: 'All respect to the opera (and ballet) people out there,' while the caption left no doubt as to the target of its message, reading: 'This one's for you, Timothée Chalamet…'
To make matters worse, Timothée's 'own mother Nicole Flender and late grandmother Enid Flender were both professional dancers.
Enid - who died at the age of 95 in 2022 - danced in Broadway musicals Kiss Me, Kate at the Shubert Theatre from 1949-1951 and Make Mine Manhattan at the Broadhurst Theatre in 1949.
While Nicole, 68, studied at the School of American Ballet and eventually taught dance from 1990-2015.
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