Timothée Chalamet did it again. Is embarrassing himself a grown-up passion? Or just something to do between films?

Matthew McConaughey and Timothée Chalamet in Texas for a CNN/Variety town hall. Screen shot: variety/YouTube

Some people keep their ignorance to themselves. When they are blatantly shallow, more so. Not Timothée Chalamet. One of this year’s nominee for the Oscar for Best Actor, Mr Chalamet put on his most startling performances yet of his short career, not in a film, but in an open forum. At the inaugural broadcast of the CNN/Variety Town Hall filmed last month, the actor, shirted in a dusty version of Cosmic Orange, told fellow film star Matthew McConaughey rather earnestly that “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though, like, no one cares about this anymore.’” Things. He could not even bring himself to say art. This was not a newbie blurting out. This was an established actor proving that fame does not augment intelligence. Mr Chalamet was truly unaware that there was a tree somewhere working very hard to produce the oxygen he had wasted. He should go apologise to it.

But, we’re impressed. It’s rare to see someone work so tirelessly to confirm every whispered doubt about his intellect. He did attempt a swift, self-interested backtrack: “All respect to all the opera and ballet people out there.” And then joking that he’d just “lost 14 cents in viewership” and was taking shots for no reason. However, the “14 cents” in question—the global opera and ballet communities—were not amused by being cast as the dusty relics of a bygone era. Unsurprisingly the reactions were swift. From his own front yard, the Metropolitan Opera quickly responded with a sleek video montage showcasing the immense craftsmanship required to mount a production—a silent rebuke to the idea that the form is lacklustre or, if at all, fading. But truly witty was The Seattle Opera: they offered a ‘TIMOTHEE’ promo code for 14% off tickets to their production of Carmen, leaning into his “14 cents” joke with surgical precision. Across the Atlantic, the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera House also showed a video montage of performance and audience, with the comment, “Every night at the Royal Opera House thousands of people gather for ballet and opera.” Noteworthy is the silence of La Scala. It’s no-rebuke is loudest rebuttal, a refusal to dignify ignorance with response.

This was not a newbie blurting out; this was an established actor proving that fame does not augment intelligence

There is something uniquely galling about an actor who leveraged the prestige of high-culture roles, playing the piano-transcribing, Bach-obsessed Elio Perlman, for instance, only to turn around and essentially call that same culture a dusty relic. The young Perlman in the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name, originally a book by novelist André Aciman, wasn’t just a character, he was a vessel of European refinement, a boy whose soul was scored in Bach and Liszt, whose very identity was entwined with the etymology of desire. That role gave Mr Chalamet professional heft, the aura of an actor capable of inhabiting intellectual and artistic depth, only to default on the loan the moment he felt his Kardashian-adjacent popularity was secure. He now carries himself with the arrogance of a man who thinks his follower count is a credit score. In that town hall (in an institute of higher learning, the University of Texas, no less), however, the actor who now brays like a donkey in the theatre of populism. It’s almost operatic in its irony.

Perhaps the most damning evidence of how daft he could be is his recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show. When British actress Emma Thompson—a woman whose very presence suggests a well-indexed library—made a simple reference to Samson and the power contained in his hair, Chalamet’s response was a blank, self-satisfied shrug. What we saw in that moment encapsulated the frustration of witnessing a prestige actor celebrating his own intellectual bankruptcy. He sat there in his oversized hoodie, a man who attended Columbia University and grew up in a bi-religious household, claiming he had “no clue” what Ms Thompson was talking about. The manufactured mirage of the “thinking man’s actor” finally evaporated. He has spent his career playing characters like Elio Perlman—boys defined by their deep, soulful connection to other than films—yet it appears he was merely mimicking the slouch without ever opening the books. He is the first actor to prove that you can be an Ivy League dropout and still come across as remarkably un-read.

The Beng at his best. Screen shot: variety/YouTube

Although that video was shared online last month, we’re only talking about it now. But his no-love for opera has been a sentiment that stretched back to a much earlier time. Seven years ago, also on The Graham Norton Show, he revealed: “I love movies, I love acting; I love going to the movies. I was kind of getting scared when I was younger that maybe it was becoming like opera or something, like an outdated art form or something, yah.” The “something” could, of course, be ballet. Back then no one in the studio enlightened him. This time, at the town hall, it was the same. Matthew McConaughey concurred: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Maybe that was incomplete; maybe he finished the sentence inside his head: “…you effing idiot.” On set, the older, established actor echoed the ignorance, yet the backlash focused almost entirely on the younger star. Criticism often targets the one who originates the sound-bite, not the one who nods along. Mr McConaughey’s role was seen as secondary, even though his agreement amplified the dismissal. But, the irony is sharp. Opera thrives on duets, ballet on synchronicity. Here, we had a duet of idiocy.

There is safety in revealing imbecility to a fellow actor. The shared identity creates a kind of safe zone for artistic ignorance. Off-screen, Mr Chalamet enjoys the added advantage of dating a member of Jenner-Kardashian clan, the make-up and fashion mogul, Kylie Jenner. His himbo aura is insulated by the Kardashian‑Jenner brand of bimbo gift bag. If one is seeking cultural enrichment, that particular camp is hardly the Library of Alexandria. As he hits 30, that ethereal, elfin quality—the “boy-king of the A24 (the company behind Marty Supreme) set”—is being replaced by a startlingly pre-uncle intensity. The bedroom-eyes to some are starting to look more like sleep depravation, and the recent facial hair situation—a thin, patchy growth—has been widely panned as “unfortunate” as if shaving it would be haram (forbidden). As he heads into the Oscars as a frontrunner for Marty Supreme (he plays a Jewish shoe salesman in 1950s Manhattan), Timothée Chalamet would do well to remember that the Academy is populated by the very opera and ballet people he so casually dismissed. That public display of arrogant ignorance is a level of self-sabotage that bordered on performance art.