During a brief interview at the 32nd Actor Awards, Tyler, the Creator jokingly speculated why he landed his supporting role alongside Timothée Chalamet in the A24 hit, Marty Supreme.
Tyler joined the rest of the cast for the Josh Safdie-directed and written Marty Supreme at the Actor Awards on Sunday (March 1), where he was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. “When was the first time you said, ‘I’m an actor?” Tyler was asked by Variety on the red carpet, as seen in the clip below. “I’ve never said it, I’m not an actor,” he laughed in response. “Josh gave me a role ‘cause he has a crush on me. That’s what it is.”
Tyler previously acted in episodes of The Mindy Project and Kidding, and had several prominent voice acting roles, but Marty Supreme marked his big screen acting debut.
As casting director Jennifer Venditti revealed in an interview with Trace William Cowen for Complex, Tyler didn’t audition for the film and was on board with the project immediately. “Josh is really into faces,” she shared. “And I mean, Tyler is just, like, it's timeless. He's perfect for this era. So he knew [when] he was writing it, it wasn't done yet [but] he said, 'I'm gonna write a role for you.' There was an inspiration from another story of a character, and he just wrote him with him in mind.”
She described Tyler as “pure joy” and “a powerhouse,” and that she’s sure there’s going to be “many more” roles for him in the future, even if Tyler doesn’t consider himself an actor yet.
“I think he's an artist, and it says a lot about Josh that he chose this as his first role,” she added. “Like, I think for someone like Tyler, who's such a creator on so many levels, for him to just be a cog in someone else's wheel in a sort of a way, he has to really respect them.”