For all the sweaty propulsion and picaresque chaos people tend to ascribe to filmmaker Josh Safdie (“Uncut Gems”), the thing that usually drives his stories is pretty straightforward: desire, frustration, and the better-or-worse refusal to accept “no” for an answer. That was the wavelength he was on when he discussed “Marty Supreme” on the DGA’s The Director’s Cut podcast, where he framed the film’s core not as sports-movie uplift, but as something closer to existential burglary.
In the DGA’s The Director’s Cut podcast, moderated by Academy Award-winner Ben Affleck (“Argo,” “The Town”), the director framed “Marty Supreme” less as a sports-movie uplift and more as a caper against destiny itself.
“So I had this real hollow feeling at that moment. It was: what are dreams! Dreams are for the lonely,” Safdie told Affleck, who was clearly a huge admirer of the film and effusive in his praise throughout the talk. “And I started to see the nuance of dreams giving people purpose. It’s a very human thing. This idea of like to dream, to try to control your fate. It’s like a heist film. You know what I mean? A heist on fate.”
Once he had that lens, Safdie said the movie clicked for him through its main character—and the pitch he brought to his longtime writing partner Ronald Bronstein sounded, even in retelling, like a guy barging into a room with a live wire in his hands.
“And I started to see an idea to combining this feeling with this player,” Safdie said. “I go to my writing partner, Ronald Bronstein, and I say, hey, I want to, I barge in, I want to make a movie about the world’s greatest ping pong player. He’s like, What the fuck are you talking about?’”
Safdie also described what he was actually chasing on set—and how quickly that collided with the day’s brutal logistics.
“You are never satisfied, ever. Even when you have a great take, you’re not satisfied. I am only satisfied when I’m feeling something, and I chase big feelings,” Safdie explained. “My daughter talks about big feelings all the time, ‘Daddy, I’m having big feelings.’ I have big feelings, so I care about – like when Marty and Wally are dancing outside that car, that’s so beautiful to me, the idea of connecting with a friend and feeling like you’re the only two people on planet earth? That’s rare. That’s awesome. That’s human nature.”
“So, when I’m there on set, and the actors are feeling something, and I’m feeling it with them, in those moments, I’m having a big feeling,” he continued. “But there’s so much going on. ‘How am I going to get 15 set-ups before lunch? How am I going to do that?’ I was able to transfer enough enthusiasm, that’s a Director’s job, transferring enthusiasm. I think I had an impassioned crew. I think that they all felt what we were doing.”
Released by A24 over the 2025 holidays, the film follows Marty Mauser (Chalamet), a kid with a dream “no one respects,” going “to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.” The picture was loosely inspired by the real-life table tennis hustler Marty Reisman.
Timothée Chalamet plays Marty like a guy trying to outrun his own expiration date—always bargaining with the clock—and if “Marty Supreme” played like a sports movie on the surface, Safdie’s comments suggested he saw it as a hustler’s story about taking control wherever you could find it (read our review). The “Marty Supereme” cast includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin O’Leary, Odessa A’zion, Abel Ferrara, Tyler, the Creator, and Fran Drescher. The film is in theaters now via A24. Listen to the whole conversation below.
