Timothee Chalamet's character in 'Marty Supreme' is based on a real hustling ping-pong icon from the 1950s

"Josh Safdie's sports drama "Marty Supreme" follows Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a talented but impulsive table tennis player in the 1950s who's determined to become the top player in the world. Along the way, he gets distracted by side hustles, a fling with an aging starlet ( Gwyneth Paltrow), and retrieving a gangster's (Abel Ferrara) lost dog, all of which almost leads to self-sabotage on an epic scale."

"He won 22 titles over his career, which spanned the late 1940s to 2002. He won five bronze medals at the World Table Tennis Championships in that time, as well as two United States Open titles and a British Open crown at London's Wembley Stadium in 1949, which featured him doing a shot between his legs and forehand shots clocked at 115 mph, which the British press called "The Atomic Blast.""

Josh Safdie's film follows Marty Mauser, a talented but impulsive 1950s table tennis player whose side hustles, a fling with an aging starlet, and retrieving a gangster's lost dog almost drive him to self-sabotage. The character is loosely based on Marty Reisman, a real-life ping-pong champion from New York City's Lower East Side who became a junior champion at 13. Reisman, nicknamed "The Needle" and called "the James Bond of table tennis," won 22 titles between the late 1940s and 2002, including two U.S. Open titles and a 1949 British Open at Wembley famed for a between-the-legs shot and 115 mph forehands dubbed "The Atomic Blast."

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