(Credit: Society of Camera Operators)

Steven Spielberg has joined in the conversation about opera and ballet following Timothée Chalamet’s comments asserting that “no one cares” about opera and ballet.

In a conversation at SXSW, the Oscar nominee said, “I like working with Netflix. They’re a great company to work with. But for me, the real experience comes when we can influence a community to congregate in a strange, dark space. All of us are strangers, and at the end of a really good movie experience, we are all united with a whole bunch of feelings that we walk into the daylight with or into the nighttime with. And there’s nothing like that. It happens in movies. in concerts, and it happens in ballet and opera, by the way. And we want that to be sustained. We want that to go forever.”

Spielberg directed an adaptation of “West Side Story” in 2021, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and was conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. He is set to release his latest film “Disclosure Day” in June.

Spielberg is latest personality to speak out against the Oscar nominee’s comments following the likes of Andrea Bocelli, Aida Garifullina, Gustavo Dudamel, John Brancy, Alondra de la Parra, and Isabel Leonard. He also joins numerous opera houses who took a moment to invite the actor to the opera and ballet.

On March 3, OperaWire published a story spotlighting Chalamet’s comments from his conversation with Matthew McConaughey. “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.’” He then added, “all respect to the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”