Timothée Chalamet is famous. Gwyneth Paltrow is too; so are Fran Drescher, Odessa A’zion, and Tyler, the Creator. They’re all spectacular in Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie’s high-octane table tennis picture that has a place on most critics’ lists of the best movies this year.
There’s a lot that makes Marty sing, but a big part of this movie, as in Safdie’s previous work—films like Uncut Gems, Good Time, and Heaven Knows What—is its ensemble of unusual faces and unique voices. In working with one of Hollywood’s finest casting directors, Jennifer Venditti, Safdie has built a constellation of loud, aggressive New Yorkers—largely played by people who are not film stars. One gets the impression that these people would be carrying on the same way even if Safdie’s camera weren’t rolling.
Here, Safdie explains his rationale for populating this celebration of tenement dwellers and junkyard Jews with authors, fellow film directors, and personalities he discovered in viral videos—starting with a voice likely only known to those who really know.
Howard Stern superfan Mariann From Brooklyn (as the Shoe Shopper)
Josh Safdie: Mariann From Brooklyn, she’s the first person who speaks in the movie [as the shoe shopper]. The great Howard Stern caller. Not a Jew, but an Italian; we’ll claim her. I called her up, and she couldn’t believe it. I chased her down [and] I said, “You need to be in the movie.”
When you cast somebody, you’re not just casting their face and their ability to be blind to themselves; you’re casting the voice. Voices are so important, and her voice is one of the most iconic. She’s the biggest Howard Stern fan, and she’s his most prevalent and prominent caller, more so than High Pitch Erik. She calls, and every time she goes, “HOWWWAD! IT’S MARIANN. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH,” and they always play a squawking crow in the background. My camera assistant was not starstruck once on the film, but that day he was.
Author Larry “Ratso” Sloman (as Marty’s uncle, Murray)
Ratso was given his nickname by Bob Dylan. He was chasing an interview on the Rolling Thunder tour, and he couldn’t get the interview. I think three weeks in, he was sleeping in his car. He hadn’t shaved in a while; his hair was greasy. Dylan knocks on the glass, and he goes, “Hey, Ratso!” He goes, “Oh, you’re saying I look like Dustin Hoffman?” He goes, “No, no, no. Ratso Rizzo, the character.” It stuck from that moment on.
He’s a huge beacon of culture. He has written so many books, sometimes getting credited, sometimes not. Most recently, [he did] the Mike Tyson autobiography. He did Howard Stern’s. He wrote a great book on [Harry] Houdini. He did a great book on the Dylan Rolling Thunder tour. He did Anthony Kiedis’s biography. Ratso actually introduced me to Penn [Jillette]; Ratso was friends with Al Goldstein. I had met him [when] I went to a talk for the National Lampoon book celebration…at the New York Public Library. It was pretty dry and not very funny until Ratso got up there. He reads from a fake TV Guide. I have it right here.