Is Marty Supreme the inner voice of Timothée Chalamet’s ambition?

Posted On January 12, 2026January 12, 2026

It’s only after leaving the cinema, having seen Marty Supreme, that everything from the last year makes sense. For months, or even since February 2025, when Timothée Chalamet got on stage and drew a clear and outright path for greatness, perhaps we’ve been seeing Marty Mauser all along. 

“I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I wanna be one of the greats,” Chalamet said with his whole chest at the 2025 SAG awards. Having just beaten out season-sweeper Adrien Brody for a win no one really expected, something seemed to move Chalamet to make his mission clear in a way that actors, with all their expected humility on those awards show stages, don’t really do.

“That was two months after we finished filming, so I was sort of kind of like still in,” Chalamet said later, fumbling his words on The Graham Norton Show. “That’s not in a pretentious way, not in a method way,” he said, already trying to defend himself or seemingly trying not to say precisely what he wants to, which is – “sometimes you’re in the energy of the character.” Or, to translate, Chalamet was already in Marty mode.

After that, and especially after seeing the film, you realise that throughout 2025, and throughout the broad and wild marketing campaign for the movie, Chalamet has stayed in Marty mode. “That’s an ephemeral pursuit, you know,” he continued to Norton, lounging back in his seat and holding his hands together in front of him, adding, “I am living in humility,” which is basically exactly what his character would say, bullshitting that humility even crosses his mind.

I’m not saying that Chalamet isn’t humble or is as narcissistic and selfishly one-track-minded as his character is. For some, they seemed to take issue even with the young actor’s speech, addressing his desire to be great, as a Vogue headline questioned whether it was “endearingly honest or manosphere-enabled overconfidence?” The writer claimed it was “kind of a lot,” seeming completely turned off by Chalamet’s outrightness. However, once again, that question of where the line is between go-getting ambition and arrogance constitutes the premise of Marty Supreme.

But we didn’t know that then. For the last however many months, while Chalamet has been bringing out every possible stop to market this movie, it mostly felt confusing, leaving us to question what on earth Chalamet yelling “woo” on top of the Las Vegas Sphere had to do with a table tennis movie.

At times, it felt annoying as his face seemed to be everywhere and in unusual ways. In ‘internal brand marketing meeting’ shared to A24’s YouTube, Chalamet appeared steel-faced and completely serious as he presents his ideas – he wants orange everything, an orange Eiffel tower, an orange statue of liberty. He wants a Marty Supreme blip, calling it a “symbol of American greatness” and claiming this movie is too. He wanted his face on a Wheaties box, exactly as we’d later find that his character dreams of in the film. In the following months, all of those ideas, and more, materialised.

“We’re not trying to be chic. We’re planting our flag,” he said, supposedly as Chalamet, but speaking every inch like Marty. He seems to have no issue with that as he addresses the team and says plainly, “We are Marty Mauser. We are Marty Supreme.”

If Mauser had Chalamet under his spell for the last year in Marty mode, we’re now seeing him come out of it. His recent speeches gathering up the awards wins for the role at the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes are far more humble than his mission statement for greatness, but still, Marty creeps in.

“My dad instilled in me a spirit of gratitude growing up, always be grateful for what you have,” he said, “It’s allowed me to leave this ceremony in the past empty-handed, my head held high, grateful just to be here.” Then, with the glory of the win, there is a crack where Marty peers back in, adding, “But I’d be lying if I didn’t say those moments make this moment that much sweeter.” In short, Chalamet has always wanted to be the one leaving with the trophy, and now he has it, and since his character has afforded him the chance to say it, he’ll say it.

It’s only after seeing the movie that you realise we’ve been watching Marty Mauser run rampant for months in one of cinema’s most fascinatingly meta marketing campaigns. Chalamet is outrightly and openly dreaming big, as if the audacity of the character and his own guns-blazing mission for victory has allowed him to lean into his own. Luckily, the actor is looking like a path to victory, rather than a spiral of relationship-ruining antics like Mauser’s. But it begs the question – is the inner voice of Chalamet’s ambition Mr Marty Supreme himself?

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