On Feb. 23, 2025, Timothée Chalamet pissed off cinephiles everywhere by declaring he was “in pursuit of greatness” while accepting his first Screen Actors Guild award. But until he went live on Instagram crawling through a glass box filled with ping-pong balls, donning a custom Nahmias windbreaker and a life-sized ping-pong ball of a helmet, there was no way of truly knowing the lengths he’d go to achieve it.
“Marty Supreme” marks Chalamet’s third year in a row leading a December release and earning awards nominations for his performance, following “Wonka” and “A Complete Unknown.” Since its surprise New York Film Festival premiere, the A24 ping-pong comedy has been destined for Oscar glory: “Uncut Gems” co-director Josh Safdie is at the helm; its flashy cast includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler, The Creator and Mr. Wonderful; and its marketing campaign was unavoidable. Delivering a performance on par with this level of noise takes top-notch talent — but that’s exactly what Chalamet has, which is why the script was written with him in mind. And it’s exactly why he deserves the best actor Oscar this year.
Chalamet’s character, Marty Mauser, is loosely inspired by the late table tennis player and self-proclaimed hustler Marty Reisman. In “Marty Supreme,” he’s a 23-year-old asshole bopping around a 1950s Lower East Side and scamming his way into scrapping together enough money to compete in table tennis championship competitions overseas. In line with the giant orange blimps used to tease the film, Marty himself takes up space and isn’t afraid to “dream big.” He’s dead set on convincing his fellow Americans that the sport is a fast-growing cash cow, and he wants to be its greatest star.
Buying into “Marty Supreme” requires viewers to buy into a character as crazed as Marty. While the film contains a large ensemble cast, the narrative hinges almost exclusively on Chalamet, a level of responsibility absent from other best actor nominees like Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another” and Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners.” Chalamet plays the perfect Safdie movie antihero: He’s unavoidable and deliciously hateable, using those around him to get what he wants while still eliciting sympathy when he fails.
High-energy lead roles aren’t new to Chalamet — think his kooky Willy Wonka or drug dealer Daniel in the chaotic “Hot Summer Nights.” But Marty is a true standout, an Energizer Bunny in a film where everyone else exaggerates his manic restlessness. Whether he’s zipping around a ping-pong table or booking it down Orchard Street to evade the cops, Chalamet does it all with panache. There should be little gratification in watching a two-and-a-half-hour film about a cocky kid, but Chalamet remains annoyingly captivating.
In one scene, Marty makes a phone call to actress Kay Stone’s (Paltrow) Ritz-Carlton suite and tells her he’s also “something of a performer.” In “Marty Supreme,” Chalamet fully commits to that spectacle. He makes great use of six years of ping-pong training during his downtime on other sets and hits balls from the crowd or between his legs, playing Marty as a true showman even before the character’s brief stint with the Harlem Globetrotters. Even off the court, Marty exhibits a toxic self-confidence that keeps audiences gripped despite, or perhaps aided by, his questionable character. At the 1952 British Open, Marty polishes sob stories for journalists, jokes about the Holocaust in front of an Auschwitz survivor and promises to drop “a third atom bomb” on a Japanese opponent. Yet Chalamet’s delivery of these lines still makes audience members applaud when Marty scores during his matches.
Just like last year, Chalamet’s Oscar nomination brings into question the academy’s voting record for the best actor category. If he wins in March, he’ll be the second-youngest winner at age 30, upending the fact his fellow nominee DiCaprio knows well: The Oscars tend to award older men. But it takes someone with uniquely and consistently impeccable performances under their belt to break tradition. Chalamet has acted in eight films nominated for best picture and has received three best actor nominations. It’s pointless to paint him as an amateur, especially when “Marty Supreme” could not exist without his performance. Even if his brazen confidence seems as unwarranted as Marty’s, Chalamet has already won in best actor categories at the Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards this year. It’s only a matter of time before he becomes one of the greats.
Contact Dani Biondi at [email protected].