Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Joceline Andersen, Assistant Teaching Professor in Communication and English, Thompson Rivers University
In the lead-up to Oscar season, Josh Safdie, the director of Marty Supreme, has been elaborating on the many cameos in his film that build on real-world associations to create a rich cast of characters.
While usually cameo publicity is all about the director’s vision, Marty Supreme’s director of casting, Jennifer Venditti, has also made appearances in press for the film, amid increased recognition for the art of casting.
Marty Supreme is up for nine Oscars, including for casting, the first year this category will be awarded, and Venditti is nominated.
In Marty Supreme, Timothée Chalamet stars as an ambitious table tennis champion running away from his life as a shoe salesman in a largely Jewish slice of 1950s New York. Alongside this star are many other recognizable faces playing cameos.
Finding a famous face in an unexpected place is strangely thrilling. As some of my research has examined, this recognition is the allure behind cameos — small roles where famous and celebrated people play versions of themselves on screen. Cameos are full of contradictions: audiences are taken aback by famous people appearing in front of the camera. They proudly pick out celebrity faces in a crowd.
Read more:
A brief history of celebrity cameos, from ‘Sunset Boulevard’ to ‘Eurovision Song Contest’
Robert Pattinson, Pico Iyer
At a January screening, Safdie clued in London audiences to a Robert Pattinson voice cameo. In the film, Pattinson voices an announcer at the British Open for table tennis.
Pico Iyer, the travel writer Safdie knew from his 2019 TED Talk about ping pong, wrote in the New York Times in January about his own small role. This cameo began with a formulaic query email and Zoom call with Safdie and Venditti.
While classic cameos like Jerry Lewis’s appearance in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) were filmed as cutaways that made for a flexible shooting schedule and assembly-line production, Iyer’s role involved shooting on two continents.
Safdie includes Iyer as a fastidious table tennis official, even though Iyer’s talk argues that ping pong transcends competition as the ultimate model for good diplomacy. Iyer’s TED Talk also sketches out the source material for an unusual minor character arc in Marty Supreme. Between the cameo, the New York Times article and the TED Talk, Safdie creates a maze for the viewer to follow outside of the viewing experience.
Stunt casting
Safdie is no stranger to stunt casting. He and his brother’s 2019 drama Uncut Gems starred Adam Sandler as a jeweller, and featured cameos from non-actors such as musical star the Weeknd and former NBA player Kevin Garnett.
The Hollywood Reporter recently detailed allegations about inappropriate behaviour by a non-actor on the Safdie brothers’ 2017 film Good Time that neither brother has commented publicly on. These allegations in the lead-up to the Oscars may have dampened excitement for casting that blurs acting and reality.
In Marty Supreme, many cameos highlight local colour. John Catsimatidis, New York grocery tycoon and former mayoral candidate, plays a well-to-do speculator bankrolling a line of table tennis balls, the Marty Supreme, that gives the film its title.
Kevin O’Leary
Kevin O’Leary, the wealthy Canadian reality-TV investor angel of Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank fame, appears in a supporting role as the sadistic wealthy husband of a faded movie star played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Surrounded by an entourage of sycophants, he bribes Marty to throw a match to the reigning champion as part of a promotional event for his company.
As O’Leary expressed in Vanity Fair, Safdie was looking for an “asshole,” and he knows how to play that.
Drawing on his savage TV persona, and inviting comparison with
U.S. President Donald Trump’s own reality-TV stardom, O’Leary’s performance relies on the audience to do the heavy lifting of association. Canadian viewers may recall that O’Leary’s 2025 “asshole” moves include supporting Trump’s bid to make Canada the 51st state.
As a supporting actor who plays a pivotal plot role in Marty’s return to grace, O’Leary is hardly a cameoist. And yet, in his first acting role, O’Leary’s persona never fully disappears into the character of the cutthroat mid-century businessman.
Marty Supreme could be an episode of Dragon’s Den, with O’Leary sizing up another hopeful contestant for humiliation or a dream come true. The audience sketches out much of O’Leary’s performance from our own memories of similar viewing experiences, just like we do for other celebrities and movie stars.
Casting against type
After Kevin O’Leary’s appearance, the audience’s second cry of recognition at my local screen was for Marty’s mom: Fran Drescher, best known as the brash, colourful New Yorker from the 1990s sitcom The Nanny. During the filming of Marty Supreme, Drescher was the president of SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents screen actors in the U.S.
Spinning a familiar story of cameo happenstance and friendly connection that is as old as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby’s star-studded 1950s Road movies, Drescher told People that the union brought Safdie and Drescher together when he called her for regular updates during the 2023 actors’ strike.
Safdie’s cameos were to feature people with what Drescher called the right “background”: New Yorkers, many of them Jewish, with local accents. According to Drescher, Safdie intrigued her with a promise to showcase her depth demonstrated during calls explaining labour negotiations. Like Iyer, Drescher was cast in this cameo against the type of her superficial sitcom character.
Labour, cultural contexts also shape cameos
Many cameos of the 1920s and 1930s relied on labour conditions where stars and former stars signed to restrictive contracts could be pulled out of the studio canteen to appear as little more than extras.
This wasn’t because extras were in short supply: according to Kate Fortmueller, who has researched film and TV labour histories, almost three per cent of Los Angeles residents in the 1920s were registered as extras. The unionization of movie actors emerged from a desire to give order to the wannabe actors flooding Hollywood.
Comparable concerns were behind the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike — a key issue was compensation for actors as streaming media changed where audiences watch screens and convenient AI technology threatens real performers.
Marty Supreme commits to depicting the real New York through cameos that recreate the accents, dialects and unfiltered faces of famous New York actors, and these resonances beyond the screen are part of the film’s allure.
Joceline Andersen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
– ref. Cameos in ‘Marty Supreme’ ask audiences to dig deeper – https://theconversation.com/cameos-in-marty-supreme-ask-audiences-to-dig-deeper-273762