Marty Supreme with Josh Safdie and Ben Affleck (Ep. 593)

The Director’s Cut - A DGA Podcast

Directors Guild of America

Tv & Film

4.6 • 848 Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Director Josh Safdie discusses his new film, Marty Supreme, with fellow Director Ben Affleck in a Q&A at the DGA theater in Los Angeles. In the conversation, he discusses how he uses his casting process to select Actors that make every character feel like a fleshed-out person, his attention to minute details in recreating the time period and texture of 1950s New York, and the process of working with Actor Timothée Chalamet to capture an aggressively determined performance. The film follows Marty Mauser, a cocky and ambitious shoe salesman who dreams of pursuing greatness. Using his table tennis skills to hustle his way towards the top, he quickly rises in the ranks with the singular goal of escaping his mundane life. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://www.dga.org/events/2026/february2026/martysupreme_qna_1225

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So I had this real hollow feeling at that moment.
0:03.0	It was, what are dreams?
0:04.8	Dreams are for the lonely.
0:05.8	And I started to the nuance of dreams giving people purpose.
0:09.8	It's a very human thing.
0:11.8	This idea of like to dream to try to control your fate.
0:14.8	It's like a high, this is like a heist film.
0:16.6	You know what I mean?
0:17.2	A heist on fate.
0:18.4	And I started to see an idea to combining this feeling with this player.
0:23.6	I go to my writing partner, Ronald Bronstein, and I say, hey, I want to, I barge and I want to make a movie about the world's greatest ping pong player.
0:29.6	He's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Hello and welcome back to the Directors' Cut, brought to you by the Directors Guild of America.
0:56.3	In this episode, a young man who no one respects goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness
1:01.5	in director Josh Safdi's sports drama, Marty Supreme.
1:06.6	The film follows Marty Mouser, a cocky and ambitious shoe salesman who dreams of pursuing
1:12.0	greatness. Using his table tennis skills to hustle his way towards the top, he quickly rises
1:18.2	in the ranks with the singular goal of escaping his mundane life.
1:23.9	Marty Supreme is Safdi's solo directorial debut. His other credits, co-directed with his brother
1:29.8	Benny, include the feature films Uncut Gems, Good Time, Heaven Knows What, and Daddy Long Legs.
1:38.3	Following a screening of the film at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles, Safty spoke with
1:43.7	director Ben Affleck about
1:45.2	filming Marty Supreme. Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Directors Guild of America, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Directors Guild of America and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.