Timothee Chalamet, who is known for his many remarkable biopic roles and earning Oscar nomination, is now set for another role, Marty Supreme, in which he plays a ping-pong hustler dreaming big.
The Wonka star plays Marty Mauser, a fictionalised character inspired by the life and career of real-life ping-pong legend Marty Reisman.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Diego Schaaf, the film’s table tennis instructor revealed how Chalamet’s training underwent.
“He was singularly dedicated to getting this to be the same quality as the rest of the movie,” he said.
Chalamet began preparing long before Schaaf came in. He secretly trained for years while working on projects like The French Dispatch, Wonka and Dune: Part Two. Given his early training, Schaaf was impressed by his skills.
Sharing how the rest of the training went, Schaaf explained, “We really dove into it last summer. We had to bring the mechanics of the strokes to a world-class level from the 1950s, which is distinctly different from how the sport is played today.”
Since the film was set in 1950s era, Chalamet had to unlearn modern technique.
“Timothée being a dancer, he understood immediately how he needed to move,” Schaaf explains. “But we had to make that work within the context of relatively fast play.”
In addition to Schaaf, Wei Wang, former US Olympian and table-tennis expert also helped Chalamet get trained.
Wang worked closely with Chalamet to nail the period-specific techniques. “Different styles have very different strokes, and he understood all of it,” Schaaf says. “He wasn’t interested in doing the minimum. Even when he got it right, he’d say, ‘Let’s do it again.’”
In addition to Chalamet, the film also included Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler, The Creator, Kevin O’Leary and many more.
Marty Supreme was released on December 25.
