And best drama goes to… this year’s totally unhinged award season | CNN

With both the Seattle Opera and the Music Center in Los Angeles announcing they launched discount codes like “TIMOTHEE” and “CHALAMET” for their upcoming fine arts performances, an undeniable question is begging to be answered: How in the world did we get here? EDITOR’S NOTE: Join us live on Sunday at the Oscars, as Variety and CNN team up on the red carpet. We’ll be live beginning at 4 p.m. ET — and after the Oscars ends as well, to break down everything that happened. Between Timothée Chalamet’s now totally out-of-control “balletgate,” drama over his fellow Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley’s feelings about cats and a terribly handled incident at the BAFTAs involving a racist slur – not to mention a wide-open and extremely late Academy Awards ceremony still to come this Sunday – the 2026 award season has been, in a word, messy. There were signs something was afoot last week, when an old clip of Buckley, nominated for best actress for her role in “Hamnet,” resurfaced in which she waxed lyrical on her hatred of cats. Buckley had made the statements around Thanksgiving, yet here we were. Then, in mid-February, Chalamet aired his own disdain for opera and b