When Hollywood needs a table tennis scene, this couple serves aces

PASADENA, Calif. - When director Josh Safdie first approached him to help with “Marty Supreme,” Diego Schaaf genuinely couldn’t “put a face to the name” of the film’s star, he said. Diego Schaaf, 71, repping swag from "Marty Supreme."Maggie Shannon for NBC News Wei Wang, 64, teaches actors table tennis form and technique.Maggie Shannon for NBC News Since 1993, the duo have worked as consultants for films, shows, commercials and music videos involving table tennis.Maggie Shannon for NBC News Schaaf and Wang have worked on “Forrest Gump,” “Friends” and “Balls of Fury,” among other titles.Maggie Shannon for NBC News The couple said now that "Marty Supreme" has wrapped, they are back to running their local table tennis clubs on weekdays.Maggie Shannon for NBC News “Do you know who Timothée Chalamet is?” Schaaf wrote in a text to his 20-year-old niece. “We’re going to be working on a movie with him.” Her response was just three letters: “O.M.G.” Few are likely to pick Schaaf, 71, out of a crowd, either. But since 1993, he and his wife, Wei Wang, 64, have built a name for themselves in Hollywood helping A-list stars like Chalamet become table tennis pros. The duo, who run Alpha Productions out of Pasadena, work as consultants for films, shows, commercials and music videos involving table tennis. Their credits include “Forrest Gump,” “Friends” and “Balls of Fury,” among other projects. A24’s “Marty Supreme ,” a buzzy Oscars contender that debuted widely in North American theaters on Christmas Day, depicts a fictionalized version of the career of mid-century table tennis champ Marty Reisman. To transform into the character Marty Mauser, a U.S. table tennis star whose dream is to win the world title, Chalamet had to pass as a world-class player. The first step: assessing Chalamet’s table tennis skills. Chalamet reportedly spent about seven years training; he told the BBC that he took his table tennis table into the desert while he was filming “Dune” and on the set of “Wonka.” He even practiced table tennis as he learned guitar for his role in last year’s Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown.” But it wasn’t until June 2024, just months before shooting for “Marty Supreme” began in New York City , that Schaaf and Wang entered the fold. “We watched [Chalamet] play, and we wanted to see how we can make a pro player out of that,” Schaaf said. “Do we have the confidence that he has the athletic ability to do it? I saw him hit for a couple of minutes. ‘Yeah, he can do it.’” Schaaf grew up playing table tennis in Switzerland, but never ultra-competitively. His real love was music. He moved to the United States in 1979 to pursue a career as a guitarist and later transitioned to sound engineering and video production. His job now focuses mostly on choreography and making sure the overall production on the projects he and Wang work on is high-quality. For “Marty Supreme,” Schaaf did everything from hiring top-tier...

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