I think ping-pong might be the perfect pastime for the slight, sly sharpness of Timothée Chalamet. He hasn’t necessarily got the brute size for any of those nastier, rougher sports, but ping-pong? Skillful, intelligent, quick and crafty ping-pong? I think he could be onto a winner there.
So it makes a fair bit of sense that he’ll be playing a ping-pong pro in A24’s Marty Supreme, which we’ve just seen our first glimpse of courtesy of some leaked pics of Chalamet on set. There’s a fair bit of hype about this one, on account of some rather sizeable names involved in the project. But who are they? What are they doing there? And who is this mysterious Marty Supreme I speak of? Fret not. I will tell you right now.
What is Marty Supreme?
Marty Supreme is a sports drama film from indie powerhouse A24, which is loosely based on the life of legendary American ping-pong pro Marty Reisman, but has some fiction stirred into the mix to spice things up a little.
Who’s in it?
Aside from Chalamet, we’ve got a stacked and intriguing cast, starting with Gwyneth Paltrow—making her first appearance anywhere other than Goop’s YouTube channel since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame—and Tyler, The Creator making his first appearance in any film ever. Director Abel Ferrara (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant), Odessa A’zion (Hellraiser), and Penn Jillette (first half of famed magical duo Penn & Teller) are playing undisclosed roles in this one, too.
The film is being directed by Josh Safdie, who cowrote the script with longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein, and is either the Penn or the Teller of the Safdie brothers along with his brother and until-recently directorial partner Benny, depending on the order you choose to place them in in your head. They directed sparkly stressfest Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler, as well as the gnarly crime odyssey Good Time with Robert Pattinson.
Who was Marty Reisman?
Marty Reisman was the 1958 and 1960 US singles men’s ping-pong champion. Unsure what went wrong in 1959 but one imagines the film might tell us. The guy was kind of a character—he also won the 1997 US national hardbat (an old-school kind of ping-pong) championships at the age of 67, becoming the oldest player ever to win an open US-wide racket sport competition at the time. More details of his life are available in his autobiography—but come on, you don’t wanna go and get yourself all those spoilers, do you?
When will the film come out?
Filming has just started in New York—hence these Chalamet snaps—so we’d bet on 2026? Perhaps? Keep an eye out.
This story originally appeared in British GQ.
