{"id":232984,"date":"2026-01-07T21:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/232984\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T21:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:04:10","slug":"how-we-made-marty-supreme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/232984\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Made \u2018Marty Supreme\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor Josh Safdie<\/a>, making a movie doesn\u2019t feel worth it without a little theft. In directing his first solo feature since 2008\u2019s\u00a0The Pleasure of Being Robbed, the New York native \u2014 best known for helming stress-inducing films with his brother, Benny, like\u00a0Good Time\u00a0and\u00a0Uncut Gems\u00a0\u2014 quickly realized he\u2019d be working off of a much larger canvas this time around. This meant both more and less room to play.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn my past films, I had the luxury of being able to just step out and steal shots in the streets,\u201d Safdie says before grinning. \u201cI can\u2019t live with the idea of things not feeling like I\u2019m stealing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a big credit to Safdie that Marty Supreme<\/a>, which at about $70 million is far more expensive than his previous features,\u00a0still unfolds with such dangerous spontaneity. This is because of the productive restlessness that Safdie fosters in his colleagues, many of whom have been at his side for decades, and, of course, the spirit of his wildly original new\u00a0character.<\/p>\n

\n\tMarty Supreme, backed and distributed by A24,\u00a0came to Safdie as he was finishing work on\u00a0Uncut Gems, when his wife, Sara Rossein, handed him a book written by table tennis champion Marty Reisman. The memoir got Safdie\u2019s creative juices flowing \u00ad\u2014 not to tell Reisman\u2019s story (though on the book\u2019s cover, he looked a lot like Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a>, who\u2019d go on to take the lead role), but to create a grand \u201950s New York tale steeped in this curious sports subculture. Safdie played table tennis as a kid, as did his father; he heard stories of the generations before him who played, too. He knew the milieu intimately.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis helped, since a lot about\u00a0Marty Supreme\u00a0would be different from what Safdie had done. He\u2019d never directed a period movie, never worked on the kind of budget this project would require. But he still started out the same way: chatting up his longtime co-writer, Ronald Bronstein.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I was a kid, I formed my entire identity in opposition to nursing an aptitude for sports, which probably made me very obnoxious,\u201d says Bronstein of how he first reacted to Safdie\u2019s pitch. \u201cBut I do rely on Josh\u2019s natural \u00e9lan and enthusiasm for life, and the way he takes life in big giant gulps of air. \u2026 My brain is a petrified rock. I don\u2019t even have ideas until I\u2019m forced to argue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFortunately,\u00a0Marty Supreme forced just that. \u201cIt\u2019s a shared psychiatric experience where a thought can lead to a recollection of something from the past \u2014 something neither of us has thought of since the day it happened \u2014 and then we\u2019ll give the floor for that person to ruminate on it, which will lead to an idea,\u201d Safdie says. \u201cOne person may think that it\u2019s a good idea, and then it\u2019s time for it to be interrogated in such an intense way that sometimes you forget that you\u2019re fighting for it. You\u2019re trying to find the weaknesses, almost like it\u2019s a courtroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdds Bronstein: \u201cWe\u2019re constantly arguing. Our relationship is predicated on interrogation, and it\u2019s a very invasive process. We\u2019re brutal on one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGwyneth Paltrow on set. \u201cThere\u2019s an inherent vulnerability to Gwyneth that\u00a0I think really lent itself to this character,\u201d says casting director Jennifer Venditti. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAtsushi Nishijima\/A24<\/p>\n

\n\tMarty Supreme\u00a0follows a wildly gifted, unapologetically cocky aspiring table tennis superstar named Marty Mauser (Chalamet), grinding it in Lower Manhattan circa 1952. He has a clear-eyed goal of ditching his job at a family-run shoe store to compete at the world championships in Japan, but after a series of missteps \u2014 including quitting his job and a botched sort-of armed robbery \u2014 he finds himself strapped for cash. He embarks on a breathless, high-wire odyssey to cobble together the funds, scheming with his pregnant (married) girlfriend, Rachel (Odessa A\u2019zion), while courting the interest of a local business mogul, Milton Rockwell (Kevin O\u2019Leary), and the mogul\u2019s wife, the semi-retired \u201930s Hollywood star Kay Stone (Gwyneth\u00a0Paltrow).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMarty was put on Earth being the best at this thing, better than anybody else on the planet,\u201d Bronstein says. \u201cIt just so happens that this thing that he\u2019s the best at sounds so stupid to everybody around him. I was like, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s my access point.\u2019 What a great conduit to explore the costs that are associated with a pursuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOther Safdie returnees found their own early inspiration. \u201cThe movie was about all these different modalities or types of birth \u2014 there\u2019s a birth of a new sport, and there\u2019s a birth of the identity of a young man,\u201d says composer Daniel Lopatin. \u201cWe were telling this story of a young man with endless, boundless energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChalamet had been attached early on, having met Safdie at a party when he was first breaking out with 2017\u2019s\u00a0Call Me by Your Name. The story of a New York striver was relatable to the actor whose training similarly began at the local level, at LaGuardia High School. \u201cThere\u2019s this New York connection that I couldn\u2019t even put into words and I\u2019d fail trying to, but that\u2019s just true to my spirit,\u201d Chalamet says. \u201cHaving gone through a very similar struggle in New York and playing this guy\u2019s struggle in New York, it was deeply resonant for\u00a0me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs his career skyrocketed, Chalamet spent years quietly training \u2014 aided by an expert on the sport, Diego Schaaf \u2014 by pulling a table-tennis setup along to productions ranging from\u00a0Dune\u00a0to\u00a0Wonka. Meanwhile, Safdie, Rossein (who served as an executive producer and researcher) and his longtime casting director, Jennifer Venditti, worked to fill out the world around him. Known for her street casting \u2014 she refers to her approach as making \u201cthe cinema of real life\u201d \u2014 Venditti had a much taller task this time, with both a larger ensemble and a fresh period setting.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKevin O\u2019Leary (right, with Chalamet and Safdie) says of his first acting role, \u201cYou were so there that I didn\u2019t want to go back to 2025 \u2014 I was really enjoying myself in 1952.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAtsushi Nishijima\/A24<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJosh didn\u2019t want to use wigs and things like that, so we\u2019re like looking at hair \u2014 if someone has a shaved head that can\u2019t work \u2014 or if someone has overplucked eyebrows or there\u2019s something with their skin,\u201d Venditti says. \u201cIf it\u2019s too cosmetic in a way, if there\u2019s something with the teeth \u2014 it\u2019s really paying attention to the faces.\u201d On Bronstein\u2019s recommendation \u2014 he\u2019d been a passive\u00a0Shark Tank\u00a0viewer for years \u2014 she brought in O\u2019Leary, finding he could naturally embody the money-minded rage of a guy like Milton Rockwell. She brought Paltrow back to acting to portray a movie star similarly mulling a comeback. And she told Safdie outright that A\u2019zion was the only actress he should consider for Rachel \u2014 even if it took him a bit to come around.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I met Odessa on Zoom, at first I didn\u2019t quite get it, which is a real testament to real-life interactions,\u201d Safdie says. \u201cWhen I met her in person, that was unbelievable. I was like, \u2018Oh my God, this is the character.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

\n\tA\u2019zion felt that way too. \u201cShe\u2019s just such a fighter and she\u2019s so independent and I connected to that. She\u2019s fucking badass,\u201d she says. \u201cThat part of myself in her, I\u2019m too scared to let it come out sometimes. I admire her a lot and kind of wish that my balls were as big as hers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVenditti was tasked with casting extras too, unusual for someone in her role \u2014 but crucial to Safdie\u2019s thorough worldbuilding process. The director points to a mid-film scene in a bowling alley, where Marty and his friend Wally (Tyler Okonma, aka Tyler, the Creator) hustle a small-town crew, as an example of its importance. \u201cWe personally cast every single face that you see in that bowling alley, and I heard and interviewed a lot of them as well. When they got to set, I never told anybody, \u2018Don\u2019t talk.\u2019 I told people to bowl,\u201d Safdie says. \u201cIt allows Timmy to feel like he\u2019s actually in a bowling alley in 1952. \u2026 It starts off with just this obsession to re-create the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEveryone knew how unique it was to have an opportunity to be working on an original film with a brilliant director at the height of his powers,\u201d Chalamet says. \u201cJosh is singularly focused and one of the most brilliant, detail-oriented people I\u2019ve ever worked with. He\u2019s as passionate as Marty Mauser.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSafdie and his team put together individualized books for everyone that ran hundreds of pages and were propelled both by the rich character backstories dreamed up by Safdie and Bronstein and by the contributions of various craftspeople starting their own work. \u201cIt\u2019s the faces, it\u2019s the players, what they wear; it\u2019s the locations, it\u2019s clothing,\u201d Safdie says. \u201cIt\u2019s pictures of roads in New Jersey. You\u2019d see the department heads on set with these, all broken up and dog-eared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cEvery single day on set, I was trying to take it in as best as I could because I didn\u2019t want it to end,\u201d says Odessa A\u2019zion, who plays Marty\u2019s girlfriend, Rachel. \u201cIt was the most incredible experience of my life.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAtsushi Nishijima\/A24<\/p>\n

\n\tThe process for Safdie needed to start at production design \u2014 because he\u2019d never made a film going so far back in time, he sought out an expert in the field. \u201cI was trying to re-create this footnote of history, and there\u2019s only one person living who is capable of doing that \u2014 and that\u2019s Jack Fisk,\u201d Safdie says, referring to the iconic production designer behind such modern historical classics as\u00a0There Will Be Blood\u00a0and\u00a0Killers of the Flower Moon. \u201cSomething we talked about early on was [having it] so that I could shoot like a documentary, where you can shoot anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSafdie and Fisk began exchanging photographs and contemporaneous films of \u201950s New York. They\u2019d go to locations around the city to discuss how they could build out the world in as authentic and detailed a way as possible. \u201cJosh would get just as dirty as I would going into locations,\u201d Fisk says. The verisimilitude rippled out to other departments. Costume designer Miyako Bellizzi, a longtime Safdie collaborator, spent years collecting research in tandem. \u201cIt\u2019s like 10 films in one because there\u2019s so many areas of research,\u201d Bellizzi says. \u201cEven the table tennis research and developing 16 countries of uniforms \u2014 like, I need to know how people dress in Brazil if I\u2019m going to make Brazilian\u00a0uniforms!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFisk\u2019s greatest challenge in meeting\u00a0Marty Supreme\u2018s demands arrived in one of the film\u2019s key areas: the Lower East Side, home to several blocks and areas of shooting. The neighborhood has been totally transformed since the 1950s. Fisk developed a modular system of constructing old tenement fronts to place at the face of buildings that\u2019ve been modernized and power-washed over decades. This is to say nothing of other flourishes to keep entire blocks within filming range immersive to 1952.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the pet shop where Rachel works: \u201cWe just rebuilt the window \u2014 took the plate glass out and rebuilt it,\u201d Fisk says. For the shoe store where Marty works: \u201cIt was next to a brand-new hotel that didn\u2019t look right, and we couldn\u2019t attach anything to the hotel \u2014 it cost a fortune to put anything in front of it \u2014 so we developed a system to obscure where we built a lot of signs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was also a ton of guerrilla street decoration. \u201cThere were tables out on the curb, then period cars and then people in costumes,\u201d Fisk says. \u201cWe had about five layers of activity to look through to see the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cThere\u2019s about 20 people in each [represented] country, and we built each of their uniforms and their warmups,\u201d says costume designer Miyako Bellizzi. \u201cSo that\u2019s, like, 20 times 16 times 2 \u2014 and that\u2019s just uniform pieces.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAtsushi Nishijima\/A24<\/p>\n

\n\tThey ran out of time at the end of the New York shoot, when they had to nail down a key scene set in a phone booth. Scripted to take place in a diner, they had no immediate access to cobble that together. So they pulled it all off on a New York soundstage.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe rented a phone booth and built a corner of a building, set this all up in a parking lot right outside the soundstage,\u201d Fisk says. \u201cThat night, we shot that scene of the phone call, and then the film was over \u2014 and it was something that we thought of within the final 24 hours. It was put together with spit and glue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the energy of a Safdie movie. The drama moves as kinetically as the production. \u201cYou can only fit so much water in it before the thing overflows,\u201d as Lopatin puts it. \u201cYou can\u2019t jam any more water in the thing than the size of the cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut, boy, did they try. The cast got in on the adrenaline. \u201cWhen I first tried on the [pregnancy] belly, I had a little cloth that I put under, but I was like, \u2018I want to feel like a pregnant woman \u2014 I don\u2019t want to be able to breathe,\u201d A\u2019zion says. She and Bellizzi worked it out so she was wearing corsets and weights, to fully physicalize the constriction of carrying a child.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI had a few scars from it because there was some friction from the belly flap under the boob,\u201d A\u2019zion explains. \u201cBeing in the car and laying like that for hours and hyperventilating \u2014 I had cuts all over my under boob \u2026 and it was worth it. It was\u00a0crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCinematographer Darius Khondji, another Safdie veteran, knows the pace well. In this movie\u2019s case, he followed the plan to use classic CinemaScope lenses to add to the realism of the period production. \u201cIt gives it this pleasure, this feeling of immediacy \u2014 it\u2019s like a scientific document,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTyler Okonma (aka Tyler, the Creator), right, plays one of Marty\u2019s closest friends \u2014 and became a close collaborator with the artisans team. \u201cTyler was able to walk the racks because he\u2019s a clothing designer as well,\u201d says Safdie. \u201cWe were able to build the character with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA24\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tThe speed was never more crucial than when it came to the actual table tennis matches, which play out as intensely as any iconic sports-film match. \u201cYou can feel how your players are emotionally reacting to every point because of the close proximity of the game,\u201d Safdie says. \u201cWe were able to go through thousands and thousands of hours of real points that had been played going back to the \u201930s \u2014 anything that was documented. We were able to cut together basically a template of what every point would look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChalamet then studied and memorized these beats. \u201cThose sequences were scripted to a T. \u2026 It\u2019s like overpreparation to a hyperbolic degree,\u201d the actor says. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot like playing a song in a movie. We had something between 50 and 100 actual sequences, there\u2019s a real rhythm to that, a real art, because a lot of that was practical and a lot of it\u2019s CGI where they filled the ball in.\u201d Khondji looked at boxing films and paintings, including the work of George Bellows, to figure out the lighting system for the matches. \u201cThe light falls out on the table and then bounces back on the end \u2014 the way it splashes, it\u2019s very interesting the way it lights all around,\u201d Khondji says. \u201cThey came in and out of the shadow and it was just very beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChalamet himself also proved a big inspiration for the visuals. \u201cWe filmed him almost like a creature, like an insect \u2014 it was an anthropological study on a man,\u201d Khondji says. \u201cThese CinemaScope lenses that we used for this camera, I felt I was looking through binoculars or a magnifier at this creature, studying someone out in the past.\u201d Bellizzi adds, \u201cHe is very similar to how I thought of Marty presenting himself in the film \u2014 he\u2019s larger than life. And you dress as the person you want to become.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPostproduction essentially begins while shooting is still taking place, since Safdie and Bronstein are both on set before editing the movie together. \u201cThey are an odd couple,\u201d Chalamet cracks of their dynamic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have a headset, and that headset goes straight into Josh\u2019s ear, and I\u2019m only there to help with rewrites and to catch things on the fly,\u201d Bronstein says. \u201cThere needs to be law and order on set.\u201d Safdie puts it this way: \u201cWe don\u2019t watch any dailies during production. We enter the edit, and now the director and the writers are morons. I hate them. Ronnie hates them too. And I hate the director, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTimoth\u00e9e Chalamet in Marty Supreme.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA24\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are entire scenes that Safdie shot before dumping, without even attempting to edit, because he didn\u2019t feel moved by them in retrospect. \u201cIf I don\u2019t feel something, it goes in the garbage,\u201d Safdie says. He calls it \u201cstarting from scratch.\u201d All told, Bronstein admits \u201cit\u2019s the hardest I\u2019ve ever worked on anything, and I think it was the most rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBecause the many artisans who worked on Marty Supreme were similarly involved long before there was a finished script, the process for most took years. Still, urgency remained the goal. \u201cIt\u2019s almost as if you\u2019re scoring a comic book or something \u2014 it\u2019s just like\u00a0boom, boom, boom. Each cue feels like a panel,\u201d says Lopatin of the music. That energy informed the sound of Marty\u2019s journey: \u201cThe needle drops already have a kind of propulsion to them that\u2019s often coming from sequenced synthesizers that are sharp and quick and smooth and digital. They cut through the environment beautifully \u2014 and they propel Marty through this universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd what a universe it was. Chalamet remembers when the\u00a0Marty\u00a0outline first came his way, before he even saw a script. \u201cI knew I was going to like it, and I loved it,\u201d he says. \u201cI was basically doing somersaults around my apartment with joy.\u201d Cut to the years of training, which Chalamet describes as \u201csomewhere between a marathon and a sprint \u2014 it\u2019s really a tremendously athletic sport.\u201d And then the performance itself, which is what we\u2019re left with, through to one last, surprisingly warm close-up. That, too, may be credited to how closely Chalamet related to Marty Mauser.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cKnowing the grind as an actor and not being ignorant to it \u2014 my dream wasn\u2019t a financial one like Marty Mauser\u2019s, but it was also in pursuit of an ideal,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was in pursuit of a realization of a vision of yourself that you want to achieve in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cHe thought it was a bit of a goof when we first reached out to him,\u201d producer Ronald Bronstein says of casting Shark Tank\u2019s Kevin O\u2019Leary. \u201cThen he sent a private plane and said, \u2018I\u2019ll fly you out to my lake house.\u2019 We took off that day.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA24\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appeared in the Jan. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Josh Safdie, making a movie doesn\u2019t feel worth it without a little theft. In directing his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6971,321,93,61,60,78102,60211,94287],"class_list":{"0":"post-232984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-josh-safdie","14":"tag-marty-supreme","15":"tag-timothu00e9e-chalamet"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}