Need to Fill an 'Impossible' Role? Call Casting Director Jennifer Venditti

Josh Safdie, the indie auteur who helmed A24 hits like Good Time and Uncut Gems alongside his brother Benny, is known for painting portraits of New York’s underbelly by casting both professionals and non-actors from the niche communities depicted on screen.

His solo directorial debut, Marty Supreme, is no different. Set in the early ‘50s in N.Y.C.’s Lower East Side, the frenetic sports movie stars Timothée Chalamet as an aspiring ping-pong legend who will do whatever it takes to achieve his version of the American Dream. Opposite the 29-year-old are fellow established actors like Gwyneth Paltrow and up-and-comer Odessa A’Zion. But the non-actors make just as much of a splash on screen. Consider filmmaker Abel Ferrara (as gangster Ezra Mishkin) and Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary (as business magnate Simon Rockwell), as well as the several table tennis fanatics, baseball card dealers, and real-life NYPD officers who get screentime.

Safdie crafted the instantly memorable ensemble with the help of casting director Jennifer Venditti. The founder of the casting agency JV8 INC, who got her start casting fashion editorials for publications like W Magazine, has worked with the Safdie brothers since 2014’s Heaven Knows What; since then, she’s worked on countless celebrated productions, from American Honey to Euphoria. Her street-casting instincts have made her the gold standard for finding faces the industry didn’t know it needed.

Venditti, 53, tells Marie Claire over Zoom in early December that she attributes her career to a lifelong obsession with people-watching and her nature. “I am an insatiably curious person who loves humanity,” she says. “This is just an opportunity to learn about people and learn about cultures or niche environments I wouldn't know about otherwise. It's a great opportunity to expand my compassion for people and people who are different than me.”

Being able to open up that window into unique communities and put them on screen is why Venditti does what she does. She explains, “It's this idea of expanding people's ideas of, These are how other humans live. These are who other people are. You might not be friends with someone like this, but we're going to show you the beauty and the poetry of these humans.”

This year, Venditti lent her skills not just to Marty Supreme but to Benny Safdie’s Smashing Machine and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia—which collectively received eight Golden Globe nominations. And in 2026, she could be recognized by the Academy for her work, with the Oscars’s introduction of an Achievement in Casting category. (“Finally! 98 years!” Venditti says of the moment.)

Here, Venditti opens up about her approach to Marty Supreme—which included setting up a ping-pong table in her office—the art of street casting, and why she’s the person producers call when there’s a seemingly “impossible” role to fill.

Marie Claire: Marty Supreme is a New York movie, a sports movie, and also a period piece. What research do you do when you approach a project like that so it feels authentic?

Jennifer Venditti: Josh, [his co-screenwriter] Ronnie [Berstein], and Josh's wife, Sara [Rossein], who's one of the producers, the research that they've been doing through the whole process of writing is so deep. So when I get involved, there's this process where they share all of that with me. I get to see all the reference pictures and videos. I get to hear all the backstories of all the characters. I get to hear if any of the inspiration has been taken from something real. And then we usually have specialists. With this, it was table tennis people. I spoke to them. We went to [table tennis] clubs. I approach it from a place of, it's not just the script. I want to feel the world. I want to understand the world.

MC: The film has such high energy. How do you assess that during casting? Was anyone playing ping-pong in your office?

JV: Yes. Josh gave me a table. We have a whole process that we take people through. We will pick an improvisational scene—like a situation that has an energy similar to the energy in the movie. I'll have professional actors who are really good at improv do the scene with the person, and it's like they're already infused with the spirit of what that energy is in this room. I always say, “If the walls could talk in that room!” because it will get so intense, and it's always heightened. Everyone sitting in the waiting room is hearing people yelling and screaming, and I'm sure it's intimidating for whoever hasn't done it yet who's sitting out in the hallway. Like, What the hell's going on in that room?

We researched and met actual players for certain roles, like Koto [Kawaguchi, as Marty’s competitor Endo] or the guys playing in the tournaments. But it wasn’t a precursor or disclaimer that we put out, like, You should be able to play table tennis, for the guys in the bowling alley. Some of those guys were actors, but Levon Hawke came in, and it turned out he was a great player. Then Isaac [Simon], who plays the guy that’s really tall with the intense face, was someone I scouted for another project. He was a baseball memorabilia dealer with his dad. He came and was an amazing player.

Whether it's an actor or a non-actor, we want to create a safe space and a space of play and experiment. We don't want people to think there's a way you're trying to get this right. My whole thing that I always say to people is, “There's nothing to get wrong, except if you betray yourself and you try to pretend to be someone else, because we have you here because there's something about you.”

MC: How would you describe the experience of having non-actors opposite professionals, including icons like Gwyneth Paltrow, who came out of retirement for Marty Supreme?

JV: When you have someone who knows where the scene is going, they can ground it. They understand the beats and where the scene has to go. And then when you have someone who has no idea, they create this magic and mystery because life is unpredictable. [For actors], one of the hardest things is where it has to go, but then you have to forget that because, in life, you don't know where you're going. So then this person who doesn't know where they're going creates that mystery for them.

In that scene in Central Park with the cops, those were not actors, and there's an unpredictability with them. That creates the energy of that scene, where [Gwyneth and Timothée are] nervous. They don't know what these guys are up to. It’s that magic.

MC: You’ve said that you and the Safdie Brothers appreciate “the cinema of actual life.” That realism is certainly why so many people love their movies, but what do you think it lends to a film?

JV: It’s hard to articulate, but when it happens to me, it just draws me in more. It's like this entry into some other world that you feel like you're getting access to something. It's special.

When I first started scouting 20-something years back in the day for fashion, I would have a Polaroid camera, I would be in some obscure place, some little town, and I would see a face, and it would be like, If I don't take this Polaroid, no one is going to get to see it! There was no Instagram, there was no YouTube, none of that. It was like, No one else is going to get to experience this thing that I’m experiencing right now. Now that we can watch Instagram all day or YouTube and get that experience, but I was like, If the photographer doesn't pick this person to be put in the magazine, or if they don't get chosen for the movie, no one will get to see the beauty of this rare person that's hiding in this little town somewhere. So it felt like a portal. It allows you to travel someplace.

What my job is, I'm a conduit, like, Look at what we get to see. Look what we get to experience. Look at all the different kinds of humans there are. And I think that's what [the Safdies] are doing.

MC: 2016’s American Honey was one of the first major features you cast, and that took you to strip clubs and Florida beaches to find people. In the years since, what are some of the other unexpected places your work has taken you?

JV: I've had too much life now. When I first started out with W Magazine, I would go to the favelas in Brazil. There were these coal mining towns in West Virginia. I used to scout in New Orleans. I was scouting something in Budapest, and the language is so hard. I had a piece of paper translated, and I would try to go up to people, and they would start running, thinking I was trying to steal something from them.

For Good Time, we cast at this place called The Fortune Society, which is this incredible place where, once you get out of prison, they help you transition. In Uncut Gems, the whole Diamond District and that world, I am going over to these big dealers’ homes and seeing how they are in their family lives. It was incredible. Then, for Marty Supreme, the big thing was the tennis clubs. I had scouts in the streets in New York because it’s a New York-centric story.

I’ve tried to do strip clubs again, and it’s not the same as it was before. Back in the day, I would go to places, and I'd be sitting there waiting for people. It takes longer to find people now. We do a lot of stuff online, which is sad.

MC: What is your favorite place to people-watch in New York?

JV: The subway is a great place. You can sit there, and it's constant people coming in and going. The thing about New York that’s so great [is] you can go to so many different places and be in a completely different community.

[In New York], everyone is so aware of themselves that it’s like I’m always looking. I used to not be able to let one person go by me. I would become obsessed and have to talk to the person. Now, I trust that the person will come to me. I don’t have to go talk to every single person, and I can let someone go, especially if I’m not in the middle of a project.

MC: When you’re street casting in overlooked communities, how do you gain someone’s trust so they don’t think you’re being exploitative?

JV: It’s all in the energy exchange. If you are clear on the intention of what you are doing, have you found the deeper meaning? Are you opening your heart and not judging? Be conscious of not trying to just take and not give. If not, then the “right” person will respond and benefit from the experience. Also, make sure you don’t stand out; try to blend in. Lastly, it sometimes takes time to build trust. Invest the time, if you have that luxury, don’t rush people.

MC: Your audition process includes an interview, so you can get to know the person better and see how they relate to the character. What is your secret sauce to get people to open up to you and be their authentic selves?

JV: The secret sauce is to be genuine. The thing is, I don't have an ulterior motive. Obviously, it's my job, but I’m not like, By the time I get done with this person, I have to figure out all these things with them. I love people in this way that there's a deeper philosophical aspect to it. I'm so curious, “How are you doing this human thing? We're all here being human in our own ways—what's the experience for you in this way?” I am fascinated by what it means to be human, and that comes from a deeply, deeply genuine place.

MC: Have you ever had an experience where a producer or someone thought it would be impossible to cast the right authentic person, and you proved them wrong?

JV: I am literally the person who people call and go, “Okay, we have something impossible. Let's call Jen Vendetti.” That was recently with Aidan [Delbis, who played Don], in Bugonia. Before that, another film that came out this year, Preparation for the Next Life, [the actress] had to speak Uyghur and Chinese. That is a very small population that we had access to. That was very hard. Sebiye [Behtiyar, who was cast in the leading role, Aishe] is very special. That was a needle in a haystack.

There is something cool about being challenged. It also feels like destiny when you find the person. With Aidan and Bugonia, it was like, A neurodivergent person who’s going to be able to handle the intensity of this script, be okay with the things that happen, and not be messed up from it, and also be able to go to this other country and be in a lot of different things that might not speak to someone on the spectrum. It turned out that he loves dark matter. He’s really interested in films like that. He wasn’t upset at all. He thought it was funny. He was super great at improvising and being himself. That's kind of the mystical part of it, like, “Oh, I’m just facilitating your destiny in some way.”

MC: You’ve spoken about how you’ve always been obsessed with people-watching. How has your relationship with it changed since becoming a professional observer?

JV: I have to have a little bit of a boundary. Because I'm doing it so much that it's being satiated in another way, in my real life, I actually like to spend a lot of time alone. I like to be in nature. I need time away from it. I tend to not want to small-talk with people and meet everyone. My book is called Can I Ask You a Question?, but I'm learning as I get older that sometimes I don't have to ask the questions anymore. There's something about not having to know everything.

MC: Is there someone or a face you've never forgotten? What gives them their lasting impression?

JV: There’s not just one. In the beginning pages of my book, there are faces blown up, and there’s a little boy I saw on the subway. I took a picture of his reflection out of the window. He has these big, saucer eyes, and he's looking up. They didn't speak English; that was back in the day, when I wanted to, but I couldn't get his info. I got nothing. But I have that picture, and it's so cinematic. I was haunted by him forever.

MC: What is a kind of project that you haven’t cast yet, but would be a dream? Or a dream location to scout in?

JV: I have a dream I can say that’s not necessarily involving scouting or casting, but I do want to make a film. I always say it's a film about humanity through the lens of casting.

For a while, I have been very interested in hospice. The idea that I’m watching life [through my work]—I was present for my dad's death.There’s something super meaningful tied with what I do now that it feels like an evolution in some way. I'm not sure how that's going to merge with what I'm doing in the world, but I'm interested in that as well.

MC: When you started, you aspired to expand the idea of beauty. What progress do you think the industry has made? Do you feel like it’s maybe caught up to you?

JV: Oh, my God, finally! It's almost embarrassing to talk about it now. I'll always have to disclaimer, like, “This was at a time when I started in the fashion industry.” It was so different. I hate to say it, but I'm like, “I was right, bitches!” [Laughs] I'm kidding, but it's just crazy how slow everything has taken. You just have to sit there and be like, This is where humans are flawed.

I think the thing that's so cool about Marty Supreme, which a lot of people say after, is, “Oh, my God. It’s so amazing to see people who look like people, or people who have lived, or to see examples of faces that aren't what we always see on screen.” I am not trying to say I don't like to see perfection, and whatever that is, too. I'm just like, If we're only seeing that, let's see the range, and then everyone can choose what their preference is. Let's open up the viewfinder.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.