John Catsimatidis is many things: an oil magnate, a supermarket baron and a politically connected Republican power broker.
But with the release of the buzzy indie film “Marty Supreme” this week, another box was checked in the life of an indelible New York character. Now Mr. Catsimatidis is an actor, with a small but memorable role in the movie, which centers on the life of a Ping-Pong hustler in 1950s New York.
A star-studded party at the National Arts Club celebrating its premiere drew Anna Wintour, Chloë Sevigny and Julia Fox, who mingled alongside Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
But that scene apparently did not satisfy Mr. Catsimatidis, who commandeered a slice of the less-than-glamorous lobby at the AMC Kips Bay 15 for a fete of his own on Tuesday night. The event attracted two high-profile New Yorkers: Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Republican challenger, Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, in next year’s governor’s race.
The film’s stars Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow skipped the Kips Bay screening, but Thomas DiNapoli, the state’s comptroller, was there. Regular moviegoers craned their necks to see who was standing on a red carpet in front of a poster of Mr. Chalamet.
After making his entrance, Mr. Blakeman stood in the back as Ms. Hochul posed for photos with Mr. Catsimatidis and his wife, Margo. Mr. Catsimatidis yelled that Ms. Hochul and Mr. Blakeman should compete at the table tennis table a few feet away. Unfortunately, there were no paddles.
“I will crush him in Ping-Pong and in the election,” Ms. Hochul said later.
Though he is a Republican now, Mr. Catsimatidis, 77, a Greek billionaire who owns the Gristedes supermarket chain and WABC, a popular radio station, has struck up a warm rapport with Ms. Hochul, 67, the state’s first female governor and a Buffalo native. Since she took office, he has donated close to $90,000 to her campaigns.
But Mr. Blakeman is close to both President Trump and Mr. Catsimatidis, whose campaigns he has supported in the past. When he announced his candidacy, Mr. Blakeman, 70, appeared to be heading toward a bruising primary battle against Representative Elise Stefanik. But she shocked the political world last week when she dropped out of the race and announced her retirement from Congress.
“The truth is: Both are friends,” Mr. Catsimatidis said when asked whom he would support in the governor’s race. “So don’t ask me that question right now.”
At the movie theater, Mr. Blakeman smiled as Mr. Catsimatidis told reporters that Nassau County had been ranked one of the safest counties in the country. The county executive then wished Ms. Hochul and her family a happy holiday.
Mr. Catsimatidis, who is a longtime confidante of President Trump and ran unsuccessfully for New York City mayor in 2013, had been at the center of the intrigue over who would face Ms. Hochul in the general election.
Both of the Republican candidates spoke to Mr. Trump, who often takes an interest in anointing the winners of his party’s primaries across the country. This time, though, he declined to urge Mr. Blakeman not to challenge Ms. Stefanik and called them both friends.
Ms. Hochul leads by wide margins in early polls, but the race for governor will be a titanic clash. On Tuesday, she and Mr. Blakeman — who is her top opponent, though she also faces a primary race against her own former lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado — were content to shower Mr. Catsimatidis with compliments and celebrate his newfound acting success.
For his part, Mr. Catsimatidis said that now was not the time to talk about the governor’s race, even as he joked that he should have brought boxing gloves for the two candidates to wear at the premiere.
The film’s protagonist is based on a real person named Marty Reisman, a legendary Ping-Pong hustler. To the surprise of the movie’s producers, Mr. Catsimatidis knew Mr. Reisman and rented him a small space decades ago to be used as a Ping- Pong parlor.
“He was a New York character back when New York was full of New York characters,” Mr. Catsimatidis said somewhat wistfully.
Asked to rate his performance in the movie, the supermarket magnate was uncharacteristically humble.
“People were saying I was good, but I can’t tell. What do I know about this kind of stuff?”
The role, he said, was an education in the making of movies. He remembers watching in awe on set as certain scenes were shot close to 20 times. His own preparation did not require too much thinking, he said. His look and gruff “I’m walking here” accent, familiar to listeners of his radio show, fit perfectly into the film’s aesthetic.
After the red carpet, Ms. Hochul and her husband, Bill, joined the crowd for the showing of the film. As the audience sat for 30 minutes while the theater’s staff struggled with an audio glitch, and Ms. Catsimatidis led the audience in a rendition of “God Bless America,” the governor talked with Mr. Catsimatidis and her husband and looked at her phone.
Mr. Blakeman left before the movie started.
Benjamin Oreskes is a reporter covering New York State politics and government for The Times.
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