Timothée Chalamet reveals secret obsession for ‘Marty Supreme

Timothée Chalamet could have been a tennis player for a living, not a movie star, but Marty Supreme let him be both.

Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme features Chalamet as Marty Mauser, a fictionalized version of real-life ping-pong legend Marty Reisman.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Oscar-nominated actor revealed, “In spirit, this is the most who I was that I’ve had to play in a role,” Chalamet said about the tennis. “This is who I was before I had a career.”

Safdie films the ping-pong scenes with stunning intensity, frequently showcasing Chalamet’s dominance in matches through long, uninterrupted takes.

Chalamet takes on the titular role in writer-director Safdie’s story about, as the synopsis puts it, “a young man with a dream no one respects”, one who rises to conquer the obscure world of ping-pong.

His character, Marty Mauser, is loosely based on real-life Jewish American table tennis legend Marty Reisman, who passed away in 2012.

According to THR, even before Marty Supreme was fully developed or officially greenlit, Safdie had approached Chalamet about creating a film set in Reisman’s world.

The Dune star began taking ping-pong lessons as early as 2018 near his New York City home and continued training throughout his string of high-profile projects.

“Everything I was working on, it was this secret: I had a table in London while I was making Wonka,” Chalamet revealed. “On Dune 2, I had a table in Budapest, Jordan. I had a table in Abu Dhabi. I had a table at the Cannes Film Festival for The French Dispatch.”

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