Marty Supreme Q_A with Timothée Chalamet _ Moderated by Robert Downey Jr. (Exclusive Interview)

Welcome our host and moderator for the evening, Academy Award winning actor and producer, Robert Downey Jr. How awesome is that movie? Congratulations on Sunday. Let's depressurize the situation. I take it you've been advised of your rights? Good. I saw this movie and I'm flashing back to when you were 22. Stop calling me by your name. And then just a year or two ago, a complete unknown, I go, my God, he's so old. And then I see this movie and I go, oh, now there's this other name. Which is such a specificity of showing this psychic life of character. Building it from the inside out and the outside in. It's just astonishing. What is this period like? I know backstage you're telling me, it's kind of exhausting. But I know that that's expectable. But what is just being at this point in this journey like? Well, it's what it says Sunday. It's an exercise in gratitude. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Seeing this theater filled to the brim. The kind of reception you get locally, it's been horrible. And for me, it's been a bit of a life shift. Where I feel in December, my energies are entirely towards getting this movie out in the biggest way possible. Because I really believe in it, hugely. And I'm so satisfied everyone here is seeing it now. Because I think now, you guys hopefully know what I was talking about. This is, to no consequence of my own, I'm a part of it. Josh Safdie, this incredible director, incredible cast, incredible production team. I know there's actors in New York City, so I want to shout out to Jack Fisk, the production designer. The effort here was sincere in the sense that there's no ulterior motive here. It was like a bunch of hungry artists coming together and giving it their all. So, specific to your question, I feel like what this moment is now is I've really tried to get out of the mindset of getting this out in the biggest way possible. And really, even stepping into a place like the Director's Guild, in a room full of fellow artists tonight, switching mindset into gratitude, but also reverence. Sounds like a cheesy word, but real reverence for the opportunity to be in these spaces. To be on stage with you. Not just to blow smoke. Feel free. Laughter In that case, someone whose career I look up to hugely. We basically met on FaceTime a couple days ago. I saw this movie and I was like, he's really good. This is mind-blowing. And also, just because it's such a great film. Anyone of us can say that the worst review you're ever going to get is, he's the best thing in the movie. It's that you're so exceptionally good in that film. This is a real piece of art. And I think that nowadays... And this happened Complete Unknown, and then Dune Prophecy, and then this. This was known as Complete Unknown and Marisa Prima shot in seven months, man. Robert, you've got to come with me everywhere, man. In a way, it's kind of interesting, right? Because there's this seamless thing where I feel like as far as... And I remember when I was about your age and I kind of just got bathed in this need to become technically proficient across the boards in arguably a much more well-known face, I mean, just culturally or generationally than I had in being chaplain. And that's like one level of stuff, right? But the fact that I did that and then did this shows me there's this quintessence that every time you do something you're building on what you've just done and you're bringing it to bear. I love that you speak in things in terms of technical proficiency. Chaplain for a Complete Unknown is one of the things I looked at and went, wow, somebody very recognizable as an actor, as Robert Downey Jr., shapeshifted into another very well-known figure gave me confidence approaching about doing it all. As you speak about technical proficiency, you know, something I talked about with a drama teacher in my high school when my career started. Name check, who was it? Harry Shipman. Harry Shipman. A really, you know, he just retired recently, but a brilliant line attendant. And when I was not disillusioned, but kind of overwhelmed, he said, yeah, but raw talent isn't mastery, is what he said to me. And this is nowhere near that either, but it gave me a sort of thing to chase. And something like this or the ability to lock in, they have this tone, you know, and I had the working habits, not that they were lazy, but they weren't to the degree I have now as far as the level of preparation and all these things. I don't want to sound like, you know, blah, blah, blah, but you gotta love. I'll tell you if you're going over the edge. It feels like there's such a discipline to this role. I just love this guy. You know what I mean? It's so weird. He does so many things that you go like, did he just say that? Did he just do that? Wait, we know what he knows. Is he really doing this? Wait a minute, he's not going to do that to her now that she did this to him, is he? He's not really going to make her feel this way about this happening or like, and every time there's just this real discipline of staying on point. And I hate to say this, but what is motivating this guy? And I want to get into that a little bit because I think it's part of the reason that the film works so well is that there's this thing called a fair world or a fair life fallacy that life is in some way fair. And when you were approaching playing Marty knowing what the trajectory was, was there a mindset you were thinking like this is what is driving him from moment to moment to moment? Man, I love that question because if you grew up in New York, I'm sure people here grew up in New York as well. I grew up in a building where people either live there or no longer live there. It just makes you dream and I love, I haven't heard that fair world fallacy, but I think I realized it very early on. I had a childhood or an upbringing where I'd have a sleepover with a friend where I'd visit their living condition and realize, okay, I'm in a better living condition and I'd go somewhere else and I'd go get this person in a way nicer living condition than I am. But it really made me dream big and that's what was so inspiring with this movie is I feel as I've gotten older and talked to my little cousins or whatever, I feel like when I was in high school dreaming big was that's what I consumed, the Nike commercials I consumed, it was the Kobe Bryant commercials I consumed, Michael Jordan documentaries, and then I feel like maybe it was post-COVID or something, I don't know. As the world has become evidently harsher, I think the world's always been harsher, now social media's evidently harsher, and I feel with young people there isn't that. I think trying hard is awesome and I think Marty Mauser is an embodiment of that. But when you're in a setting like he is, I feel like I was in early in my acting career, you have to be the stalwart. If you're not rolling 13D backstage, you're 1D. You're the only support system. I hope I didn't cross anyone the way you crossed people in this movie. But in those moments, I thought that I'd been so related to it, but it's like Meryl Streep said, the parts of your character you don't get when you finally understand them, that's when you crack the character. And I feel Josh Sanfield, the director, was always in my head about, you don't judge this guy. Some of the comments towards Rachel, whatever, it had that great line at the end to Ron Sethi, the table tennis commissioner, where he says, where I come from, it's every man for himself, and that really does something to a person. That sounds so plain spoken and maybe not sophisticated in the setting I just said it in, but if you grew up like that, you know that to be true. Just as far as Josh Sanfield goes, this was a real hat trick. There's a sequence you may recall from 14 seconds ago where a guy says, don't use the shower, but use the bath. And what happens after that could have been the most obscenely tone-wrecking sequence ever. But again, he had you. And the tug falls through on the dog, breaking his arm, and you made us mine. I think Josh nailed that, though. Just talk about that sequence a little bit. I remember reading that and thinking, man, with any other project, that might be the thing. What is this? It doesn't link thematically, but Josh is just a master. I also think those are the things that excite him the most in filming. Then I'm there naked with the appropriate I don't even know the dirty way of saying it, the cocksucker, I don't know how to say it. The water's layer in the bathtub. That must have been a ball to shoot. Two. Just to be clear. Bring it back on the rails, Rob. It's going great. Josh was so excitable and loving it. We're in the bathtub. I look up and there's lights that are hanging off our rig base. Josh is like, this has been properly done. It's not going to collapse in the water. How do I want to go out? Such risk. There's also that moment where all the Marty's... I thought the Marty's degree balls were going to have art. I thought maybe we could see it. Maybe it's a product. You really couldn't determine where the story went, but there's something in that image of all those balls going out the window and this thing of every time this guy fights to do whatever he has to do to get away from the situation that he would find intolerable, which is not believing he is the best at something. ------- anything. That's what Ryan Coogler said to me a week ago. He was an athlete growing up, too, and that's maybe what he related to the most in the moment. I haven't heard it a lot from people. What is this thing where your sport is your get away mechanism from life? The way soccer or basketball wasn't something for me, and acting has become, not continually, but when I found acting. I love how you just said that because it is a means to an end to find that escape valve. You see that, too. How many of you can relate to this? Anyone who comes from a home environment where you're just kind of like... and you're managing, on occasion, your parents, you're managing the situation, you're managing the culture you're in, and trying to represent for that culture. Out of all of this, I see what's great about us, even if we're kind of embarrassing in this way. I think there's something about this film which is, it's kind of a new kind of hero, which is why I'm so happy that you guys had the wherewithal to set it, period, because you know how sometimes when something is not set in a contemporary way, you're able to deal with its messaging a little better, you know what I mean? And I feel like Marty is kind of becoming this kind of archetype for a way of... Nowadays, when everything is about, it seems so divided and so disparate. The idea is as long as you know that you have won, whatever that means in overcoming your own limitations or whatever, that it's not about really how it looks on the outside. And I keep wondering, because some people are like, you know when a baby has a... Can we just talk about that last scene where he goes into the place and sees his baby? That was so unexpected. And just for instance, the comic media, half a dozen times in a career, is saying, okay, scene 131 is up. You feeling good? And then, if you're lucky, and you're prepared, and you're disciplined, all you have to do is just start walking to your mark, and you know that you've been lifted by the angels of your effort. So please, tell me just a little bit about that, what you remember about that day, that moment, et cetera, because it lands the film in such an effective way. Wow. Oh, man. You just nailed it. That's a scene you circle, and he gives you butterflies, and I... I feel like that was the biggest swing on Josh's part more than for me, because Marty can be such a detestable character at times, really, to take this gambit and go, okay, will people buy this man's journey, basically, however you interpret that moment, whether it's the grief of the end of his youth, or that he's going to transition into fatherhood, or whatever it be. On a practical level, I don't have anything really exciting to say, it's just, I'm trying to do the best job for the scene, and I remember a grip that day saying, don't **** it up. That's right. It was like the one guy I was getting closest on set, and I'm like... Did you have the thought in your head that you used to springboard him? Absolutely. Okay. All right, we'll talk about it when we're done. This man, Tony Powell, I love this dude because I think that what this industry needs is people who are excellent and responsible, and by the way, just because it's kind of fun, and A24, everyone, I got to tip my hat, you want to talk about how to... And for any of you who are thinking about someone at the tip of the spear, you're about to say, the tip of the spear, yeah, I'll go on top of the spear. There'll be a safety line, right? This is going to help. Keycard Orange, it's just been one of the most... Particularly if you're going to do something that I think deserves to have a massive audience like this is, and by the way, congrats, it's doing really well, and it hasn't even opened up internationally yet, but that to me is part of it, right? Nowadays, it's also, how do you get out? And I'm going to say this, too, because the marketing season ended for you, the awards season is well underway, and I'm officially kicking off my Avengers ******* Doomsday. And I just want to let it be known that we're excited because, well, you want to hit it with the right name, but we both have films opening on December 18th, and we decided to coin it. You go for it. ------- Doomsday. We'll see if we're still friends, but... The supporting cast is so exceptional, and I think the way that Josh casts, and also just the way you hosted it for everybody, because you're really attentive, and you're really on the right frequency with everybody, but I think a lot of people have been getting shined, they all know who they are, but Abel Ferrara is a terrifying odd guy, and the fact that he's running in and smelling, but he's got a bag of money, and then he's got a knife in his hand, smelling... Those scenes, because, you know, totally, there's quite a few shifts, but when there is this sticky mess of the thing that you know is now putting you and those that are in your proximity right at death's door, what were those sequences in that whole arc and that kind of interaction with his character? Well, Abel felt like that guy. He's a street poet. His films, King of New York and Bad Lieutenant, they're sort of emblematic of that kind of scary dude with street energy. The sequence, I won't say who, but in that motel sequence, there's a lot of non-actors in the movies that I found it really thrilling to work with. You know, sometimes it would take multiple takes to really get something out of them, and I'm really getting in the guy's face, and I'm really like, you know, trying to get him angry with me. I'll say, Josh, don't get angry with me, don't get angry with me. And I did another take, and then the guy said, I was just in jail for 30 years, don't **** with me. You don't have to see me angry. I was really trying to get under his skin. But that wasn't that sequence with Abel, but it was, that's a joy, you know, to be so live wire with the acting. Luke Manley, who plays Dion in the movie, you know, he's a huge Knicks fan in New York, and he got cast off of you know, Luke Manley. It's kind of a Knicks fan video, and it's all the New York energy in this movie, the kind of New York faces, it feels like Howard Johnson or something in the 60s, 70s, you know. It was a dream. Also, I used my New York family to go, this is the most you and most your upbringing that we've ever seen, you know. Paltrow told me when she met, she was like, oh my god, I didn't know we had that skin. I was like, it's ******* makeup. Everybody did their job across the boards where this, to me, this is a decade defining film, and I think it is a generation defining film. And rather than keep you here any longer having to go to the bathroom, I just want to say is there anything you want to say in closing to our panel? Well, I want to say thank you for saying that, just to cap off the nice words you said at the end there. Thank you for doing this on behalf of the film, on behalf of me, but really the production team, the rest of the cast that worked on this, but really shout out to the production team. They went above and beyond, and I think it really takes someone like Josh to inspire everyone production team-wise to, you know, everyone doing that last ounce of research, and it was an amazing thing to work on, you know. I'm so grateful to have worked on something around people that look up and not down, you know. My instinct... Yeah, give it to him. My instinct is, and I was thinking about this, and I was thinking on the drive here, listening to Kenny Loggins' Heart to Heart, I was thinking that you and Josh have a possibility to have one of those ongoing, if you're feeling it, relationships where you guys keep choosing to be the ones who can get these very specific, very evolved, very important... Hey man, from your lips to his ears, because I couldn't agree more, and I'm delicately, sensitively trying to dance around that. At this point, he's making a movie every six years, so... Because Gems came out in 2019, so, but I do feel like Josh is a genius in his own right, where we sort of enable each other's neurotics, not even the right word, are like something, and I would love to do it with him again, and for all the reasons like you just said, you know, look at Leo and Scorsese, the people I all admire, the people that I humbly look up to, and I'm like, yeah, I'd love to do it with Josh again. Who knows? This could be it, and if it is, I'm very much up for this. Well, you've talked a lot lately, and I'll wrap it up with this about, you know, I'm literally twice your age. When I was 30, I was making a movie with Norman Jewess, and it was called Only You, and he immersed it to me, and I'm like, I feel like I'm one of the great actors, if you agree with that, and he looked at me like I was nuts, and he said, well, Mr. Downey, that remains to be seen. And I want to say in front of God and everyone in this audience here with you, that as of Marty Supreme, it no longer remains to be seen. Thank you.