Marty Supreme is a whirlwind tale of ambition and ping pong that hinges on Marty (Timothée Chalamet) dropping trow and taking a paddlin’. Those who have seen the film in theaters, and there were quite a few of them over the holiday week, know that the film’s most eye-grabbing moment comes when Lil Timmy Tim’s lil tush fills the big screen as “Mr. Wonderful” Kevin O’Leary smacks him on the behind for being a “bad boy.” But because Chalamet aspires to be “one of the greats,” that means showing off what God gave him and refusing to use a stunt butt. “When it came time to whack him, there was a stunt ass. There was a double,” O’Leary said. “[Chalamet] wouldn’t do it. He said he’ll do it himself. He didn’t want some other ass immortalized.”
Unfortunately for Chalamet’s posterior, the fake paddle designed to soften O’Leary’s broke on the first take, and the scene required a real one. O’Leary claims the paddling “went on for hours” as Safdie demanded more paddling. “Josh was saying, ‘You’ve got to wind up harder,'” O’Leary told Variety. “I was really whacking him.” In the end, it took 40 takes before Chalamet could pull up his pants at four in the morning. Hey, you mock Milton Rockwell’s dead son? That’s paddlin’. You sleep with his wife? That’s a paddlin’. You want to join his scripted ping-pong competition after refusing to participate? You better believe that’s a paddlin’.
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