Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow on intensity of making 'Marty Supreme'
by Fred Topel · UPILOS ANGELES, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Making Marty Supreme, in theaters Thursday (Dec. 25), was intense for both Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow. Chalamet endured an eye infection, and Paltrow had reason to feel nervous in her scenes.
Chalamet plays Marty, a table tennis player competing in the 1952 championship. Paltrow plays Kay Stone, a former movie star he meets while on tour.
At a Q&A following a Los Angeles screening of the film, both actors detailed their experiences making the film. Chalamet said director Josh Safdie pushed him out of his comfort zone, but doubling up glasses and contact lenses took a physical toll.
"Josh wanted my eyes beadier," Chalamet said. "That's an easy example to cut me off from my comfort zone."
Safdie, who co-wrote the film with Ronald Bronstein, explained the double lenses Chalamet wore in the film.
"We put +6.5 contact lenses in the eyes, then you put -6.5 glasses on top so you can actually get the sense that you can feel a life of impairment," Safdie said. "The first time, he texted me, he said, 'I am dizzy. I am so dizzy right now.'"
Dizziness led to a full blown eye infection. At that point, Chalamet realized he'd found his limit.
"It was great in the morning to be like, 'I have evidence that I can't do this every day,'" he said. "Never have I felt so good to get an eye infection and go okay, I can say to him I pushed it this far."
As Kay, Paltrow had not appeared in a film since 2019's Avengers: Endgame. She had done the Netflix series The Politician and an episode of American Horror Stories, but was anxious about returning to the screen.
"I was nervous because I hadn't done it in such a long time," Paltrow said. "I was like is this going to be sort of like riding a bike? Am I going to remember how to do this and get in touch with myself that way?"
Safdie said Paltrow's emotions informed Kay Stone.
"The vulnerability that you felt, you brought to the character," Safdie said. "You play her with such a sadness, like an electric sadness of what happens when you put a dream aside."
Kay stopped acting in film when she married a businessman, who is sponsoring the table tennis tournament. Kay is attempting a comeback on stage.
Kay's heyday was the 1940s, so Paltrow drew on actors of that era, in particular Grace Kelly.
"There was sort of a Grace Kelly thing about her, who had also quit her acting career to get married and also kind of broke in a way like Kay had and had tragedy," Paltrow said.
David Mamet cameos as the director of Kay's play. That helped relieve some of Paltrow's tension.
"The day we were rehearsing a play, it was very freeform," she said. "It was kind of nice because I started in the theater and it was nice to have my first day on stage and not with a camera so close."
Safdie said he and Bronstein wrote much more of the play than ended up in the film, and also the full scathing review Kay reads a portion of in the film.
"It's a devastating review too," Safdie said. "The review is rough. You should read it sometime."
During her screen absence, Paltrow had the support of her brother, Jake, a director himself. Jake asked her to run any offers by him, so when Safdie's came along he fully endorsed him.
"When I said that Josh had called me, he was like, 'You're doing it. You're doing it,'" Paltrow said of Jake.
Chalamet first met Safdie in 2017 ahead of the release of Call Me By Your Name. He spent years training in table tennis for the film's ping pong scenes.
Each match had to be filmed twice, once with the ball and again without one for visual effects, used minimally in the final cut. Mimicking a match without a ball was more challenging, Chalamet said.
"It's more interesting than what you see with the ball," Chalamet said. "It's like a choreographed dance to a T."
Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow attend 'Marty Supreme' premiere
Cast member Timothee Chalamet and Kylie Jenner attend the special screening of "Marty Supreme" at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif., on December 8, 2025. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo