Timothée Chalamet’s best role yet is your weirdly intense coworker on Zoom

Timothée Chalamet just posted an 18-minute-long video to his Instagram to promote his upcoming A24 film, Marty Supreme. It might be his best role yet.

In the video, Chalamet—sporting a bright yellow tank top, buzz cut, and dainty necklace—joins a Zoom call full of supposed marketing executives who will be leading the promotional campaign ahead of the film’s release on December 25. After awkward introductions, Chalamet proceeds to fill up the meeting’s airtime with increasingly ridiculous suggestions for the film’s marketing efforts, leaving the eight other members of the call scrambling to accommodate his wild ideas.

On A24’s YouTube channel, where the video is posted under the title “Timothee_Chalamet_internal_brand_marketing_meeting_MartySupreme,” it’s gained almost 100,000 views. And on Chalamet’s personal Instagram, it’s been watched almost 10 million times. 

The campaign, which is a parody of an actual marketing meeting, sees Chalamet fully commit to the part of “snobbish actor with no regard for his coworkers”—and clearly, it’s resonating. The meta concept sticks the landing by balancing absurdist humor with an uncanny eye for the moments that make our digital workplaces just a little bit universally awkward.

An absurd ad campaign you just might buy into

Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie, is a sports-comedy film loosely based on the life of American ping-pong player Marty Reisman. The most information that we have about the film thus far comes from A24’s official trailer, released on November 11, in which Chalamet embodies a version of Marty who’s brash, determined, and extremely self-confident. 

Those characteristics come out in full force through the new Marty Supreme ad, which plays like a surrealist comedy of errors about how not to behave in a Zoom meeting. Less than two minutes into the call, Chalamet has already taken control of the meeting, explaining that his philosophy for the movie’s marketing is led by three principles: “culmination,” “integration,” and “fruitionizing” (which he admits is not a real word).

Things only get weirder from there. First, Chalamet suggests that his character, Marty Supreme, appear on boxes of Wheaties cereal. Then he gears up to introduce something his creative director has been “working on for six months,” only to reveal a single orange color swatch. Finally, he escalates to suggesting that Marty Supreme’s marketing should include a fleet of blimps, an activation at the Statue of Liberty, and an orange Eiffel Tower. 

As Chalamet’s ideas get more and more grand, the other people on the call are forced to keep a straight face. It’s a particular genre of humor that plays unbelievable absurdity against the everyman, a concept that’s seen success in shows like Nathan for You, The Rehearsal, and I Think You Should Leave.

Subtly skewering Zoom meetings for the sake of cinema

Where the new Marty Supreme ad really shines, though, is in its subtle dissection of the awkward Zoom call, an experience that almost every remote worker suffered through during the pandemic. From the painfully long introduction sequence to the clunky shift to screen sharing (during which Chalamet reveals a computer background of himself receiving an award), constant interruptions, and sprinklings of corporate-speak, every beat feels like a truly torturous meeting.

While it’s unclear exactly why A24 chose to advertise Marty Supreme through advertising parody (considering that it’s a movie that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the marketing world), the video does seem particularly geared toward an online audience of young Chalamet fans. By balancing the ridiculous with the real, the ad strikes a relatable note that’s perfectly suited to attracting modern viewers. 

“i feel like I am an imposter in a professional zoom meeting,” one Instagram user wrote under the video. “i know this is supposed to be a joke, but I’ve been in a lot of entertainment marketing meetings, they are exactly like this,” another fan wrote on YouTube.

Some may argue that Dune or Call Me by Your Name represent Chalamet’s best work. Marketers everywhere know it’s “Timothee_Chalamet_internal_brand_marketing_meeting_MartySupreme.”

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