The makeup work on “Marty Supreme” was so subtle that even Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t realize what she was seeing.
Stella Sensel, a special effects makeup artist who worked on the celebrated new sports drama, has revealed that Timothée Chalamet’s transformation was so convincing that it completely fooled his famous co-star the first time they were on set together.
“Gwyneth didn’t know that Timmy’s acting makeup was makeup. That’s how good it was,” Sensel exclusively told The Post. “She commented on it and, you know, she felt bad for him. She didn’t know his skin was so terrible. And so we all giggled.”
Sensel explained that the realism behind Chalamet’s look didn’t come from heavy prosthetics or lengthy applications but from carefully designed details that blended seamlessly into the actor’s face.
“Timmy’s makeup didn’t take more than an hour,” the former “Face Off” contestant shared. “He wore these very subtle transfer pieces on his face that looked like acne and acne scarring, along with some other scars on his face. Those don’t take a long time to apply.”
“They did the unibrow thing on him, where not only did they draw it in, but they also applied these very fine hairs individually,” Sensel added. “It looked really good. That was all hand application of drawing fine, fine lines and applying little individual hairs.”
Paltrow herself opened up about Chalamet’s convincing makeup – and how she even offered the 30-year-old actor a skincare routine to help treat it – during the Awardist podcast earlier this month.
“I was up close to him, and I was like, my gosh, because when I had seen him before, his skin was always so beautiful,” she recalled. “I didn’t realize that he has this scarring on his face.”
“And then he’s like, ‘Are you insane? Like, this is makeup,’” Paltrow, 53, laughed. “He’s like, ‘I have good skin.’ I was like, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’ Yeah, [the makeup was] amazing.”
Directed, produced and co-written by Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme” follows Marty Mauser (Chalamet) on his journey to becoming a world-class table tennis champion.
Although the film is a fictional story, it was inspired by the real-life ping-pong pro Marty Reisman, who won several medals at the World Table Tennis Championships between the 1940s and the 1960s.
Paltrow co-stars as Kay Stone, a wealthy retired actress-turned-socialite who forms a surprising connection with the titular Marty.
The Goop founder described her character as “this woman who is married to someone who is in the ping-pong mafia” during an interview with Vanity Fair published in March.
“We have a lot of sex in this movie,” she added of her and Chalamet’s characters. “There’s a lot — a lot.”
Sensel revealed that certain moments from the film unfolded under tightly controlled conditions, particularly during those intimate sex scenes.
“I was not present for [those scenes],” she noted. “Normally, when there’s an intimate scene happening, it’s a closed set. Very few people are allowed to be present. There’s an intimacy coordinator and all that stuff.”
“So only the people watching those two characters would be right there,” Sensel continued. “But Gwyneth was only there for, I think, about a week. We got her in and out as fast as possible.”
However, the atmosphere was said to be far more relaxed between takes – especially inside the makeup trailer, which Sensel said included unexpected interactions with Kevin O’Leary.
O’Leary, 71, portrays Milton Rockwell in the A24 film, Kay’s businessman husband who takes an interest in Marty and the sport of ping-pong.
“He was fun. He took photos on set all the time. He had his own little camera and was documenting everything,” Sensel said of the man known as Mr. Wonderful.
“I didn’t do his makeup, but the gentleman who did his makeup was right next to me in the trailer,” she continued. “So Kevin O’Leary would be right next to me in the trailer getting his makeup done.”
During one interaction between scenes, an actor attempted to pitch O’Leary a business idea as if it were an episode of “Shark Tank.”
“I remember somebody tried to pitch him. The actor whose makeup I was doing was trying to pitch Kevin O’Leary in the trailer,” Sensel laughed. “And Kevin was light-years ahead of him. He was like, ‘No, that’s already been done. Listen, let me tell you…’”
Moments like those reflected the broader creative environment fostered by Safdie, whose unconventional casting choices seemed to extend well beyond traditional actors.
“I remember seeing these casting sheets for just background actors,” Sensel told The Post. “He really wanted them to have a very specific look about them. He’ll cast people who are not actors because he likes the way they look.”
Sensel said that one background actor in particular had worked with Safdie on a previous project, and that the director liked him so much that he was asked to appear again in “Marty Supreme.”
“There’s a gentleman in the film who was in ‘Uncut Gems,’ whom I believe Josh found at a diner because he liked the way he talked,” the makeup artist shared. “He overheard him, they became friends, and so he’s in this film, too, because Josh brought him back. He’s not an actor at all.”
“Josh has a way of bringing people out who haven’t been working in film in that capacity,” she added. “He even got Fran Drescher in it, and I don’t think Fran has acted in a while.”
That flexibility extended to the makeup department as well, with Sensel recalling how one effect ultimately reshaped an entire scene that was scrubbed from the original script.
“I will say that there was an effect – and I have no idea if the scene is still in the movie – but there was an effect, because in the script a beat-up guy was sitting in the back of a car,” Sensel told The Post.
“But then it changed, and they were like, ‘Oh, we’re not doing that scene anymore,’” she recalled. “But we were like, ‘Well, you know, [prosthetic makeup designer] Mike Fontaine designed this whole makeup. We’ve tested it already. It looks amazing.’”
Instead, Safdie created a whole new 1950s scene so the makeup department could utilize their special design.
“They wrote a new scene for this guy in this beat-up makeup,” Sensel said. “Gave him lines and everything in the scene, where he’s making a phone call to his mother asking for money.”
“So instead of being tied up in the back of a car and asking for help, he’s now calling his mom and asking for money in this seedy hotel,” she added. “I have no idea if it made the cut.”
Looking back, Sensel said that the collaborative and fast-moving environment is what ultimately made “Marty Supreme” stand out from all the other productions she’s ever worked on.
“We all had such a good time making this and, you know, not every film is a walk in the park,” Sensel concluded. “But this one I fondly think of as one of the best times I’ve had.”
“Marty Supreme” is now in theaters.
