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\n\tLast year, Tyler, the Creator popped up in the comments under an Instagram post from Steve Lacy, who was dealing with the frustration of fans constantly asking for new music.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI feel you. shit is annoying especially when I never said out my mouth an album was coming,\u201d Tyler wrote. \u201cI wanna be an actress lmfao.\u201d At the time, it read like a throwaway joke, but it\u2019s since come to feel like a mission statement. Within the span of a year, he\u2019s managed to do both exceptionally well, dropping the critically-acclaimed Chromakopia<\/em> only a few days after his comment on Lacy\u2019s post, following it up with the surprise release of Don\u2019t Tap The Glass<\/em> this summer and, now, his show-stealing performance in Josh Safdie<\/a>\u2019s Marty Supreme<\/a><\/em>, where he more than holds his own among an ensemble cast featuring the likes of Timothee Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn the film, Tyler, the Creator \u2014 credited under his full name, Tyler Okonma \u2014 plays Wally, a sharp-witted taxi driver who, like Chalamet\u2019s Marty Mauser, is a ping-pong obsessive. The pair goes out and hustles other players with a cunning ruse that relies on the era\u2019s racial and ethnic tensions. Wally somewhat anachronistically glides through the all-white club, able to garner sympathy from other players with a story about a rider skipping out on the fair and attacking him. The role leans into Tyler\u2019s natural charisma and timing, positioning Wally as both a mirror and a counterweight to Marty\u2019s ambition. The ambient sense of racialized danger creates a subtle, unnerving backdrop that fits squarely into Safdie\u2019s signature sense of dramatic tension.\u00a0 Wally and Marty eventually dupe a handful of white players into betting on their elaborate charade of a match, inadvertently setting off one of the film\u2019s central plot points.\u00a0<\/p>\n