Timothée Chalamet declined to half-ass his Marty Supreme performance, and when it came time to film a ping pong paddle spanking scene, he refused to let a stunt double butt-in on his role.
Chalamet plays a table tennis prodigy who gets embroiled with a retired actress (Gwyneth Paltrow), and her humiliated entrepreneur husband (Shark Tank shark Kevin O’Leary, making his cinematic debut). O’Leary told Variety that to play his revenge-seeking character, he spanked Chalamet “for hours,” as director Josh Safdie filmed about 40 takes until four in the morning.
“When it came time to whack him, there was a stunt ass. There was a double,” O’Leary said. “[Chalamet] wouldn’t do it. He said he’ll do it himself. He didn’t want some other ass immortalized.”
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O’Leary noted that a softer, prop paddle broke on the first attempt, necessitating the use of the real thing. “Josh [Safdie] was saying, ‘You’ve got to wind up harder,’” O’Leary recalled. “I was really whacking him.”
Marty Supreme is one of our favorite films of 2025, and it’s in theaters now.
