The director Josh Safdie had very specific casting guidelines for his new film, “Marty Supreme”: He wanted everyone to look as if they were from the 1950s, naturally. That meant no Mohawks. No bright white teeth. No shaved heads.
“Josh was, like, obsessed with hair,” said Jennifer Venditti, the film’s casting director and a longtime collaborator of both Josh and his filmmaker brother, Benny. “He did not want to use wigs.”
Venditti, whose work on the film made the shortlist for the new Oscar category of best casting, is known for blending established actors with first-time performers: She cast the former N.B.A. star Kevin Garnett in a lead role as himself in the Safdies’ 2019 chaotic crime thriller, “Uncut Gems.” Josh Safdie turned to her for the mammoth task of filling around 150 speaking roles in “Marty Supreme,” which stars Timothée Chalamet as a gritty table tennis champion complete with glasses, a mustache and raging acne.
She enlisted a sprawling lineup of musicians, comedians and other nonactors, among them the “Shark Tank” regular Kevin O’Leary; the rapper Tyler, the Creator; the basketball star Tracy McGrady; and the supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis.
Here’s a guide to some of the film’s most interesting cameos, and how they came about.
Kevin O’Leary
O’Leary plays Milton Rockwell, a businessman who takes an interest in young Marty. The Canadian investor, also known as Mr. Wonderful, is no stranger to the cameras, having appeared on “Shark Tank” as a judge since 2009, as well as on various Canadian reality TV shows, but he took particular delight, he said, in cranking up the vampiric qualities of his “Shark Tank” persona in his first scripted role. “I don’t consider myself acting in that role as much as being myself, being what I knew I would be if I were in 1952,” said O’Leary, who came aboard after a personal pitch from Safdie. “I mean, I am Milton Rockwell today.”
John Catsimatidis
The supermarket mogul appears as Christopher Galanis, one of the few businessmen who takes Chalamet’s character seriously. It was the first film role for Catsimatidis, the one-time New York City mayoral candidate who hosts a pair of radio talk shows on WABC. The cameo came about, Venditti said, thanks to Catsimatidis’s son, John Catsimatidis Jr., who was a “big fan” of Josh Safdie’s.
Abel Ferrara
The director, known for crime dramas like “Bad Lieutenant,” plays Ezra Mishkin, a criminal Marty becomes involved with. Ferrara, whom Venditti said was a “huge fan” of the Safdie brothers, has turned up before in one of their films, making a cameo in the 2009 comedy-drama “Daddy Longlegs.” This time around, there was just one issue: Ferrara lives in Italy, where he is working on his next movie, “American Nails,” a modern gangster story. “That was a whole thing,” Venditti said. ”I’m glad we could make it work.”
Penn Jillette
Jillette, the outspoken half of the magician duo Penn & Teller, plays a farmer named Hoff. The 6-foot-7 comedian had long been on Josh Safdie’s wish list, Venditti said, but there was just one stipulation: He had to agree to a haircut to match the period look Safdie had in mind. Jillette, fortunately, was game.
Tyler, the Creator
In his first feature film appearance, the rapper and producer gets not just a cameo, but significant screen time as Wally, a taxi driver and Marty’s friend. Though he’s had small roles in the “Jackass” series and Pharrell’s animated Lego documentary, “Piece by Piece,” the Grammy Award-winning rapper is better known for his music than his acting chops. But Safdie, who met the performer in 2015 at a Q. and A. about the Safdie brothers’ psychological drama “Heaven Knows What,” had always felt he had an “incredible face” for cinema, Venditti said. “If you’ve seen him perform, there’s no question,” she said. “He’s a natural.”
Tracy McGrady and Kemba Walker
If the basketball players in the film seem exceptionally good at dribbling when they share a bill with Marty, that’s because they’re played by the former N.B.A. pros Tracy McGrady and Kemba Walker. One of the film’s producers, who was “very in the basketball world,” was able to connect with them, Venditti said. (Also making an appearance: George “Iceman” Gervin, the basketball Hall of Famer, who plays a fictionalized version of Herwald Lawrence, whose Ping-Pong parlor was said to be the first Black-owned business in Times Square.)
Though neither McGrady, a seven-time All-Star and current N.B.A. studio analyst for NBC Sports, nor Walker, a four-time All-Star and now a coach for the Charlotte Hornets, had ever acted before, they weren’t so much playing parts as showcasing skills they already possessed, Venditti said. “It was just getting people that do what they do, and putting it on film,” she said.
David Mamet
David Mamet, the playwright who won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1984 for his ruthless real-estate tale “Glengarry Glen Ross,” turns up as the director of an Off Broadway play starring Gwyneth Paltrow’s fading movie star character. Mamet himself is also a filmmaker, with Oscar nominations for “The Verdict” (1982) and “Wag the Dog” (1997). This isn’t his first cameo: He also had minor roles in the modern film noir “Black Widow” (1987) and Ari Aster’s black comedy “Beau Is Afraid” (2023).
Fran Drescher
Drescher, the star of the 1990s sitcom “The Nanny,” plays Marty’s mother, Rebecca Mauser. More recently, Drescher was the president of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, serving from 2021 until this past summer and helping negotiate the end of the 2023 strike. She had been on Safdie’s short list for a while, and he had wanted to use her in a few other projects, though one had yet to work out. But she was worth the wait, Venditti said. “She has such a great face for 1952,” she said. “There’s no vanity, a rawness to it. I really wanted all the faces in the film to feel like that.”
Isaac Mizrahi
The fashion designer gets a quick-quip turn as Merle, a loyal publicist who represents the Paltrow character. It’s one of several cameos over the past few decades for Mizrahi, including on the shows “Ugly Betty,” “Sex and the City” and “Gossip Girl.” To get him to participate, Venditti had an inside track: One of Safdie’s childhood friends had lived in the same building as Mizrahi, and the designer remembered little Josh coming to visit his neighbor. “I hope this is the beginning of more of this for him,” she said.
Sarah Bahr writes about culture and style for The Times.
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