‘Marty Supreme’ could lift Chalamet to the top of the Oscar ranks

“Marty Supreme” director Josh Safdie says the 30-year-old has the qualities that make a top-ranked table tennis player.

“I saw an urgency and a desire to be a supreme version of himself,” Safdie says. “An incredible table tennis player has hyper-focus and hyper-precision. And that was something that was inside (Chalamet’s) DNA.”

When Safdie and Ronald Bronstein were writing the screenplay, they envisioned a character who was driven, no matter what the risk. “And when you’re casting, you want to take the essence of the character and the essence of the person you’re casting and hope they align.”

Chalamet delivered on all counts. He learned the finer points of table tennis, dissected his character’s back story, then peppered Safdie with questions. “Sometimes, you don’t know the answer to,” the director admits. “So then you lead the student to do more research, which then informs the character. By the time you’re showing up on set, he has psychologically prepared himself so that if he’s going to improvise a moment, he understands who that person is.”

Chalamet’s character, Marty Mauser, is a driven New Yorker in the 1950s, hoping to become a world table tennis champion. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the financial means to make it happen, so he does whatever he can to raise the funds. The film, as a result, embraces the chaos that surrounds Marty.

In some cases, as many as 40 extras would interact with Chalamet.

“It creates an instability that lines up with Timmy’s energy, and certainly with the uncertainty of a scene like a hustling sequence,” Safdie says. “Marty’s never really in ‘off’ mode. But there are scenes where the energy does come down.”

When shooting stops, Chalamet doesn’t stay in character, “but he stays in spirit throughout the whole film," Safdie says. "He’s very serious on set and kind of abhors silliness and people who do not take the craft seriously. I don’t direct him. I’m just there to help … catch new ideas that come up on the set.

“I was completely blown away by how serious he takes his craft and his ability to just block out all the white noise attendant to a public life. I probably did 15 read-throughs with him, and he would bring new questions to each scene that always informed and made that seem deeper. He’s more than an actor.”

Chalamet’s process was in full swing when he portrayed Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” He learned how to play the guitar like Dylan, studied his quirks and delivered a performance that also netted an Oscar nomination.

Now, as he brings “Marty Supreme” to the Oscars (he’s also one of the film’s producers), Chalamet can make good on his statement at the Screen Actors Guild Awards last year.

“I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is I’m really in pursuit of greatness,” he told the audience after winning the Best Actor prize for “A Complete Unknown.” “I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats, I’m inspired by the greats … I want to be up there.”

“Marty Supreme,” Safdie says, could be another step in that direction.