Remember me
There were a lot of great movies in 2025, but Marty Supreme was one of the greatest. The Josh Safdie-directed “ping-pong movie” mostly garnered acclaim for Timothée Chalamet's riveting performance, but it was so much more than just that. Specifically, the outstanding performance Shark Tank's own Kevin O'Leary had?
O'Leary, who also goes by “Mr. Wonderful,” was indeed wonderful in his feature-film debut, and now that the talk has died down on Chalamet's performance, I'd like to talk about what a revelation Kevin O'Leary is.
There was a time when I thought Timothée Chalamet was going to beat Michael B. Jordan for Best Actor, but thankfully, that didn't happen (I'm sorry, I love Chalamet, but I loved Sinners with my full heart and soul). Even so, what made Chalamet's performance so electric is just what a selfish person he is in this film. Table tennis is Marty Mauser's life, and he's willing to step over anybody he can just to see his dreams come true.
He's a real scumbag! So, it's surprising that there's actually a character even more despicable in this film, and that's Kevin O'Leary's character, Milton Rockwell. Rockwell is a businessman. He sells pens. He's also married to an aged movie star, played by Gwyneth Paltrow.
Now, that doesn't seem so bad, but Rockwell is the kind of guy who will humiliate a person in front of their friends by paddling the person. He's the kind of guy who becomes fascinated with somebody, but only if he can find a way to exploit them. In other words, he's your typical (or perhaps stereotypical) businessman…who also happens to be a vampire. I'll explain.
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Anybody who's seen Marty Supreme will undoubtedly bring up Kevin O'Leary's “vampire scene,” as it's a real standout moment in the film. Toward the end of the movie, Mauser decides to renege on his deal with Rockwell to lose to the Japanese player, Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), and in a fit of rage, Rockwell goes backstage to where Mauser is and tells him that he's a vampire who’s lived for centuries.
He goes on to tell Mauser that he's known several people like him over the years, and that Mauser better follow through on his deal, or he'll never be happy and be stuck in his own hell forever. There are a lot of ways to interpret this scene. On one end, you can take it at face value, and believe that Rockwell really IS a vampire, and that his threat is real.
Or, you can believe it's a metaphor, as I initially took it, and that Rockwell is both threatening Marty and sympathetic. He sees something in Mauser that is possibly a reflection of himself, and that being selfish is like being a vampire in that you use others to survive. Perhaps as a businessman, Rockwell himself feels like a vampire - or, like a parasite - and he’s warning Mauser not to go down that path. Mauser just blows him off, though. Even so, it's a potent scene. In fact, it’s so potent that…
Kevin O'Leary deserved an Oscar nomination for the role. Honestly, I thought he was the best part of this entire movie, and every time he was on the screen, I was enraptured.
He really commands every scene he's in, and he feels absolutely vital to the movie, just like Chalamet himself. So, even though he wasn't nominated, he deserves just as much acclaim. He was really that good!