TED Radio Hour - The TED talk that put writer Pico Iyer in “Marty Supreme”

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

“Marty Supreme” stars Timothée Chalamet as a young, brash table tennis player in the 1950s trying to hustle his way to a world championship. One of the characters standing in Marty’s way is played by frequent guest, Pico Iyer, a TED speaker and travel writer who’d never acted before. In this bonus episode, Iyer shares how a TED talk unexpectedly landed him the role and reflects on how this simple game can teach us to play with someone, not just against them.This bonus episode was released early on TED Radio Hour+. Listeners there get access to regular bonus episodes (like this one) as well as all of our episodes, sponsor-free. That’s because with Plus, you directly support our work and public radio. You can join at plus.npr.org/ted.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Manus Shumeroody, host of NPR's TED Radio Hour. I love going to the movies. And a few weeks back, I went to see Marty Supreme. That's the film starring Timothy Chalame as a table tennis champion that's set in the 1950s. But I'm telling you this game, it fills stadiums overseas. So I'm watching this movie, right? And I do a big double take when I saw who was starring. as the head of the global table tennis association in the movie.

It's a TED speaker, who has been on our show numerous times. So good to see you again, Manus. Hey, Pico. Writer, Pico Iyer. I am finding this whole exchange really offensive. You're offended? I'm offended. Not an actor. Pico writes about travel and so much more.

He's been on the show talking about the day he lost everything, his house, every possession in a fire, and how that experience led him to become the soulful explorer that he is. But yes, Pico is also really big into table tennis. He even gave a TED talk about it, which brings us back to the movie and the story of how Pico Iyer was cast in Marty Supreme. Tell me the story of how this came to be. Well, Manus, I was as surprised as you. I have never acted in my life. I know nothing about that world, but it came about through a TED talk. The director of Mardi Supreme, Josh Safdi, saw me give a talk from six years ago about

ping pong as a guide to life. And since the film had to do with ping pong, and since I seemed so different from the vision that Marty was embodying the center of the film, he realized that I might be well suited to playing a stuffy official. And I tried hard to get out of it, but I think he was. was very determined that I should play that part. And so it turned out to be a great adventure for me. Wait, wait. Why did you try to get out of it? You weren't like, Hollywood, here I come. You're not a flashy guy, so maybe not. Well, I knew how hard work it would be, and I just have no

experience. I was keenly aware. I've never even acted in a high school play or one 30-second video or anything. On the other hand, I think because the director had seen me on the TED stage, he knew that maybe I could speak to cameras a little and wouldn't be daunted by crowds. So that was an advantage. And also my schedule was very complicated, but they actually rearranged the whole schedule to accommodate me. So then I knew I couldn't say no. Wow. So, I mean, the thing about your TED Talk, let's talk about that, why you know about ping pong, table tennis, whatever you want to call it.

It's very near and dear to your heart. It's been a very big part of this chapter in your life. Can you tell us about that? Yes, I've been playing ping pong since I was a little boy, but the last 24 years here in suburban Japan, three times a week, I play with my mostly elderly neighbors. And the great surprise when I began playing was we only play doubles. We change partners every five minutes, so if you happen to win at one moment, you're likely to lose six minutes later. We keep track of the scores, of course, so that it'll be exciting, but nobody keeps track of who's winning the games. And we pay best of two. So quite often there's no winner or loser. And what I gradually learned

was that the whole point of this exercise is to ensure that there are no losers. And everybody feels like a winner. And so every night, I was playing last night when I come home and my wife says, how was it? I say fantastic. I have no idea whether I've won or lost. I just know I've had a good time. And everybody else in the club would come up with the same answer. So it's exactly the opposite of the furious winner-takes-all individualism that Marty represents in the film. In Japan, I'm encouraged to believe that really the point of a game is to make as many people as possible around you feel that they are winners. So you're not careening up and down as an individual might, but you're part of a regular, steady chorus. The most skillful players in our club

deploy their skills to turn a 9-1 lead for their team into a 9-9 game in which everybody is intensely involved. And my friend who hits these high, looping lobs, that smaller players flail at and miss, well, he wins a lot of points, but I think he's thought of as a loser. In Japan, a game of ping-pong is really like an act of love. you're learning how to play with somebody rather than against her.

Yeah, so when you first read the script, because the movie, you know, for those who haven't seen it, is very much about this young man who is desperate to win to be the champion. It really is the antithesis of what you describe in the talk. Exactly. And I think in many ways the film is almost a questioning of the American dream. I do believe that America is still a land of opportunity in the way that my native Britain and Japan or not, but the shadow side of that is pursuing your dream means perhaps trampling over the dreams of everybody else. And I think one of the fascinating things about this film is that it raises so many questions. I've been surprised that many of my friends have got in touch with me and said,

Pico, we were so delighted to see you play a villain, this joyless figure standing in the way of a young man with a dream. And as many friends have got in touch with me and said, Pico, we're so thrilled that you were the hero of this film, the voice of decency and sanity in the face of this selfish, ruthless young guy. And so I think the film really presents America within a larger global context. And as you were suggesting, I grew up in England, as I say, I live in Japan, and neither of them have the same sense of the importance of ambition as America does, which is good and bad, perhaps. I mean, I love that idea that you can be playing the same game and having an absolutely

completely different experience of it, depending on your cultural reference points, on the values that have been instilled in you, on what you've been told your goal is, or if you've been told there is no goal other than to be in the moment and experiencing the thing you are doing. It's a really, really important reminder. Do you think that the film captured that as much as you did in your TED talk? I think it hints at it because, as you know, Marty's main adversary is a Japanese person who seems very unemotional, very stoical, doesn't register any emotion when he wins or when he loses.

And he probably comes from that background in Japan, whereby the only way to be a loser is to think too much about winning. and Marty scores wonderful victories here and there but what is the cost of that victory and what is he losing in terms of his soul so I think that's an undercurrent in the film and it struck me when I was watching the film it's set in 1952 as you know

and in some ways that was when the American Empire was at its peak that America just helped win the war they'd helped to revive Japan with the occupation the Marshall Plan had helped to rebuild Europe So America was running high, and yet 1952 is also the year when in Korea the war was coming to a stalemate. America wasn't winning. McCarthyism was spreading across the country.

And so maybe it was the moment when actually America was falling from its peak, even though it was sitting at the top of the world. And I don't know how much that was in the minds of the filmmakers as they were writing it, but it certainly gives this added dimension. And one thing I've been thinking about since I saw the film, was how much it might apply to America today, because we're hearing a lot about losers today. We're meeting books with titles like winner takes all, and we're all painfully aware that America is more divided than ever before, perhaps because of this sense that some people are hell-belt on winning,

and it leaves most of the rest of us as losers. The binary that there is right now. The binary. And, of course, Japan is the opposite. It's a very harmonious society because of the notion, that you're part of a chorus. Your aim is not to stand out, not to be ahead of others, but to play your part within an orchestra

to create this beautiful melody and harmony. So there's much to be said for both sides in both parts of the world, but it's an interesting dynamic. Well, the irony that also this movie is up to win a lot of Oscars, Oscar Awards, but I'm more interested in asking you about the process of being in the film.

What was that, I mean, what was it like? Like, I know you as a writer and I know you as someone who when you perform, I suppose, on the TED stage, you're speaking from your ideas and your thoughts. How did it feel to transform yourself into someone who was essentially upholding the rule of law for the world of table tennis? It was like a journey to a foreign country. I knew in advance this would be going into a world I've never been to before. And what made it interesting in part was, as you say, I hope I was playing somebody very different from myself.

If I'd been playing a version of Pico Aya, it wouldn't have been hard and it wouldn't have been interesting. But I'm playing this constantly angry, joyless, haughty soul. And I thought, well, that'll be interesting to see what I can bring out of myself that resembles that. It was very, very hard work, much harder even than I'd imagined. Really? Really? Oh, my goodness. It made me happy by comparison to go back to my desk where I just write for eight hours a day because many in this crew were putting in 23-hour days. We were filming at four in the morning at times having started at lunchtime. And even as I was feeling

sorry for myself, everybody else, especially the director and Timothy Shalamee, were working round the clock. And as soon as they stopped, Timothy Shalame had a series of other engagements because his film was up for the Academy Award last year, a complete unknown, in which he was playing Bob Dylan. But I think part of what was interesting about this film was that almost all the scenes in which I was acting were completely improvised and unscripted. So I spent a lot of weeks in advance

diligently learning my lines for every scene. And then when my first scene came up, it was late at night. I was suddenly whisked off to a little room. All kinds of cameras began to descend upon me. Suddenly Timothy Shalameh walked into the room and we started shouting at one another. I'm good for table tennis, Mr. SEPI. Appeal to the USTTA.

Maybe they can find something better. The USTTA is two guys in the desk. It doesn't exist. That's not my problem. It is your problem. I want to stay where you're staying. That's what I need. I am finding this whole exchange

really offensive. You're offended? I'm offended. I'm offended. You're making your star player huddle in a rat's ass. So sorry for that interruption. He was delivering lines very different than the ones I'd been prepared for.

So I had to deliver equally ad-libbed and spontaneous lines. And that was the case with every scene. And I think it was a way to give this feeling of gritty, un-rehearsed, often messy, real life. So it was very different. I'd imagined, you know, directors sitting placidly in a video village following things on monitors and there was no blocking. There were no rehearsals. There were no marks on which I had to stand. There was a handheld camera circling me like a panther. And every moment was fresh. And I think one reason that the,

director chooses to work with non-actors like myself is to keep the professional actors like Mr. Salome alive too, because he knew that he was working with a first-timer, with an amateur, and so he couldn't take any shortcuts or make any assumptions. So the whole thing was radically different in that way from what I had expected. And because maybe of my background on the TED stage, I had been asked to prepare quite a long speech to deliver to a big crowd. And as it turned out, we never had time even to shoot that scene. So I spent weeks learning my lines, but they were never used. And then later, in Japan, suddenly they turned to me and said, we want you to go up to a mic and speak to this large crowd and make up some words right now. So there, I had to

improvise a speech in front of a big audience. And again, maybe my work would help me with that. And maybe that's why they knew that I wouldn't be completely daunted by that. But it was interesting that it was not as programmed at all as I had imagined. Yeah, fascinating. I, of course, love as someone who writes, you know, almost poetry and prose about travel and how it changes the soul, that you felt that that's what it did to you. Does that mean you'll do it again, Pico? Can we expect to see you on the silver screen again? Did you get the bug? I don't think many other directors are so keen to work with non-actors. Josh Lafde is, I'm unusual in that regard. And I'm not sure how many other directors are keen to have an aged

hairless ping pong player and writer defacing their sets. But who knows what the future would bring? And what about the gang over at the senior center where you play ping pong in Japan? What did they think? So the film hasn't actually arrived in Japan yet. It comes... So you're still incognito. Yes, exactly so. I think it's going to be a big thing here because ping pong is still a central game. And most of the friends that I play with learned in school and played a lot when they were young, sometimes even before World War II. So 75 years ago, my friends are often in their 80s. So the film arrives exactly at the same time as the Academy Awards. And I think a lot of them are going to see it. And they're going to be as surprised as you were when they see their

haggard old friends suddenly appearing on the screen. I love it. You've got a big month ahead. Thank you so much for making time for us. Oh, it's always such a delight, Manus. Thank you. That was author Pico Iyer. His most recent book is called A Flame, Learning from Silence. You can hear his many talks at ted.com. Special thanks, as always, to our Plus listeners for supporting the show. If you're not a member of NPR Plus yet and you want to support public radio, you can go to plus.npr.org. You will get ad-free listening and regular bonus episodes, like this one, and of course, our eternal gratitude. This episode was produced by Matthew Cloutier and edited by James DeLhoose.

Our partner in NPR Plus is Chow, too. A new episode of TED Radio Hour will be out on Friday. I'm Manus Shumerooney, and I will talk to you then.