Josh Bennett never thought a video audition from his bed would lead to a role in the table tennis biopic Marty Supreme alongside Hollywood star Timothée Chalamet.
The semi-professional table tennis player replied to a casting call advertised by the sport’s governing body for England asking for British players, thinking he would just be an extra in the background.
After acting out a scene for the small part of Ted Bailey over a Zoom call, Josh was cast and whisked out to New York to film.
The 26-year-old, who lives in Leamington Spa, tells My Newspaper Newsbeat the whole experience was “bonkers”.
The box-office hit has already secured Timothée best actor gongs at the Critics’ Choice Awards and Golden Globes, and he is expected to continue his success at the Bafta Film Awards on Sunday.
It is up for 11 awards in total including best film, original screenplay and best director for Josh Safdie.
The semi-fictionalised film is based on real-life post-war table tennis star Marty Reisman.
Timothée has previously said he spent seven years mastering the sport after being approached for the starring role in 2018.
In preparation for some of the intense rallies, Josh rehearsed with Timothée and Japanese table tennis player and actor Koto Kawaguchi, who plays Marty’s rival Koto Endo in the film.
“I was lucky enough to actually do a one-to-one session with Timothée as well out in New York,” he recalls.
“What a cool experience to be able to work with someone like him and to see the amount of effort that he put in as well for the role.
“Everyone from the table tennis world would appreciate the fact that people have gone to so much effort to get the table tennis part of this film really accurate.”
Josh features in the film as one of the players competing at the table tennis championships held in Wembley in London, and appears in a number of other scenes.
However, he initially wasn’t sure if he’d made the final cut and says it was “really surreal” to see his face pop up on the big screen within the first 10 minutes.
Table tennis is a family affair for Josh, whose mum, uncles and siblings have all played over the years.
He started around age five as soon he could hold a bat, and has gone on to play at international tournaments.
Despite his experience, Josh had to learn some new techniques as the film features an older style of hardbat table tennis which was played in the 1950s, when the film is set.
He says that style is “a lot more explosive” and you aren’t able to get as much spin on the ball as you can now, due to the bats being made with just a layer of rubber and no sponge.
“If you see some videos of how they used to play, it was almost like they were dancing around the court, it wasn’t aggressive,” he explains.
Since the film’s release in December, Josh says he has seen a spike in interest in the sport.
“The impact of the film has been huge,” he says.
“I’ve had friends at work or friends from school that I used to play with back in primary school at clubs and they have all messaged me since being like: ‘You’ll never guess what, today at work we set up a table and had a massive competition off the back of having seen the Marty Supreme film’.”
He hopes the interest will translate into more people attending the upcoming World Table Tennis Championships in April and May, which are being hosted in London to mark 100 years since the first World Championships were held in the city.
And he is rooting for the film to smash it at the Bafta Film Awards on Sunday.
“I’ve never been so invested in wanting one specific film to win,” he says.
“To see Timothée win best actor would be cool. To see the film win best picture – that would be awesome.
“Just to know that I played a small part in that happening would be really cool.”
