Timothée Chalamet to Star in Film Inspired by ‘Jewish Table Tennis Wizard’

In recent years, Jewish actor Timothée Chalamet has played an eclectic cast of characters. He has played the interstellar Duke Paul Atreides in the “Dune” films, the eponymous chocolatier in “Wonka,” a young cannibal in “Bones and All” and the revolutionary student Zeffirelli B. in “The French Dispatch” — to name a few.

Now it looks like Chalamet may be taking on his strangest role yet: Marty Reisman, the Jewish “table tennis wizard.”

Yesterday, Variety reported that Chalamet has signed on to star in “Marty Supreme,” a new film from Safdie’s brother, Josh Safdie. According to them, the film is based on the late professional ping-pong player Marty Reisman, but it’s a fictionalized story.

Born in New York on Feb. 1, 1930, Reisman is a table tennis icon. He’s decorated. He won 22 major titles in his decades-long career, including two U.S. Opens and a British Open. But “The Needle,” as he was known, also had style, verve and, simply put, a hustler. The 9-year-old who started playing while recovering from a nervous breakdown became the kind of player who wore Fedoras and flashy clothes and won (and lost) millions in his games. His signature moves included measuring the net with a $100 bill before a match and breaking a cigarette in half across the table. He opened for the Harlem Globetrotters, played ping-pong using shoes as rackets and achieved “the greatest drop shot ever seen on the face of the earth,” according to table tennis expert Sir Harold Evans.

“I competed with people in a gladiatorial spirit,” he once told the New York Times. You can see that gladiatorial spirit, that eye-catching style, and that needle-thinness in this video of 19-year-old Marty Reisman winning the 1949 British Open.

This wouldn’t be the first time Chalamet has played a Jewish character in film. In 2017, Chalamet played French-Italian Jewish teenager Elio Perlman in “Call Me By Your Name,” which would prove to be his most revelatory role. Another Chalamet film, “A Complete Unknown,” is currently in post-production; in the biopic, Chalamet plays Jewish folk-rock legend Bob Dylan, who becomes a defining artist of the 20th century.

Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to see Timothée Chalamet become “The Needle.”