From One Battle to Another to Marty Supreme, supermarket magnates, professors and special agents have been stealing scenes on screen as directors increasingly cast non-professionals for authenticity.
Striving for realism, Timothée Chalamet recalled a scene in Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme where an extra, a former inmate, warned him: 'I was just in jail for 30 years. You really don’t want to fuck with me.' Safdie had cast a non-actor, one of many in the film, a fictionalised homage to table tennis player Marty Reisman.
Similarly, Paul Thomas Anderson used people with no prior acting experience for his comedy action thriller One Battle After Another. The film features James Raterman, a retired Secret Service special agent, who was spotted by Anderson after appearing in a documentary series. Raterman praised the collaborative approach of Anderson and the A-list cast, saying they 'treated me like a family member from day one.'
One Battle After Another also includes Paul Grimstad, a Yale professor, who said his years as a lecturer prepared him for acting. 'There is an element of verbal performance in teaching,' he told the New York Times. Grimstad also appears in Marty Supreme alongside non-actors such as supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, former basketball players George Gervin and Tracy McGrady, and high wire artist Philippe Petit.
Catsimatidis, 77, noted that director Josh Safdie cast him after seeing him during a mayoral campaign. The trend follows a long tradition from early Soviet cinema and Italian neorealism to a fleeting appearance by Donald Trump in Home Alone 2.
