Kevin O’Leary has been known as a variety of issues in his life — “Mr. Great,” TV persona, entrepreneur — however “actual asshole” may be essentially the most unexpectedly helpful.
It’s the outline director Josh Safdie gave him when providing the position of Milton Rockwell in Marty Supreme. And it’s not even the primary time O’Leary has been forged that means. When Shark Tank launched 20 years in the past, producers instructed him they have been on the lookout for an actual asshole and thought he’d be good.
“So this theme has been working for me for a very long time,” the 71-year-old Canadian businessman laughs to Yahoo. “It’s kind of full circle.”
Full circle, however with a twist.
O’Leary by no means anticipated to search out himself starring reverse Gwyneth Paltrow and Timothée Chalamet in one of many buzziest movies of the yr, not to mention emerge as certainly one of its most-talked-about performances. But in some way, improbably, he suits. As a billionaire socialite with a razor-sharp tongue, O’Leary doesn’t simply make a cameo — he hijacks the display screen.
How did Kevin O’Leary find yourself on this film?
The trail from Shark Tank to the Safdie-verse didn’t contain an audition or a Hollywood lunch. As a substitute, it began at O’Leary’s lake home.
Safdie and cowriter Ronald Bronstein had written the position of Rockwell and have been nonetheless looking for the precise particular person when O’Leary entered the image. In response to O’Leary, the half had been troublesome to forged — so he made them a proposal: Come to him. He wasn’t flying to New York. In the event that they wished him, they might sit on his dock and skim the script collectively.
Earlier than they arrived, O’Leary printed the script — “the dimensions of phone books” — and left it on the bar. A longtime good friend staying on the home awakened early, began studying and couldn’t cease. Marty Supreme tracks a charismatic hustler (Chalamet) navigating cash, energy and ambition — with aggressive Ping-Pong on the unlikely heart of all of it. O’Leary performs Paltrow’s onscreen husband.
“He mentioned, ‘Kevin, have you ever learn this factor? That is insane. You have to be Milton. This Milton man is a foul man, and he’s you,’” O’Leary remembers.
That endorsement sealed it. When Safdie, Bronstein and producer Eli Bush arrived, they didn’t simply learn the script — they started shaping the character round O’Leary himself.
“I began to say to them, ‘Look, if I used to be Milton Rockwell, 52, a billionaire, richest man in America, I would not say that. I’d say this,‘” O’Leary says. His personal internet value is estimated to be round $400 million, in line with Forbes.
“They have been fairly versatile in crafting the story to the way in which I noticed it to form of soften into the character,” he continues. “And it made it very straightforward for me to simply slide into that position as a result of, you recognize, I understand how to be a billionaire in 1952. That is not too removed from what I do each day. … That is [who] I’m.”
O’Leary, heart, as Milton Rockwell in a scene from ‘Marty Supreme.” (A24/Everett Assortment)
Relinquishing management
O’Leary will not be accustomed to being something however essentially the most highly effective particular person within the room. For many years, whether or not within the boardroom or on the Shark Tank set, he’s been the one calling the photographs — the investor with the ultimate phrase, the dealmaker whose approval everybody else is chasing. Even in tv, he’s constructed a persona round authority and management.
Marty Supreme required one thing fully completely different. For the primary time in his profession, O’Leary wasn’t on the high of the decision sheet. He wasn’t the boss. He was a part of an ensemble … and dealing for another person.
“Yeah, that took some time,” he admits of not being the one in cost. “I’ve by no means labored for anyone. In order that’s very troublesome.”
The adjustment wasn’t nearly ego; it was about trusting a course of that was basically not his personal. At first, O’Leary bristled on the variety of takes, the fixed recalibrating, the refusal to maneuver on from a scene till each element was locked.
“However then I noticed — hey, I am with the perfect guys on this planet right here,” he says of Safdie. “Why do not I simply chillax and allow them to inform me what to do?”
As soon as he let go, the outcomes spoke for themselves.
“I am fairly pleased with the way in which that labored out,” he says.
That willingness to give up management prolonged past the set — even into territory the place O’Leary is famously meticulous: cash.
O’Leary with costars Gwyneth Paltrow and Timothée Chalamet. (John Nacion/Selection by way of Getty Pictures)
Whereas Shark Tank viewers know him as a relentless negotiator, he didn’t deal with his personal deal for Marty Supreme. As a substitute, he trusted his longtime agent at UTA, Jay Sures, with whom he is labored for years with out a formal contract. (“I simply have a handshake,” he says.)
Sures didn’t sugarcoat the chance.
“He did say to me, ‘Kevin, you’ve by no means accomplished scripted. You may shit the mattress on this,’” O’Leary remembers. “And I mentioned, ‘How do I do know I will shit the mattress until I attempt?’ He mentioned, ‘You may actually f*** it up.’”
O’Leary’s response was blunt: “I mentioned, ‘I don’t give a shit. I’m going to do it anyway.’”
Even now, he couldn’t let you know what his paycheck was.
“What I bought paid, I do not know,” he says. “I imply, I will be sincere with you. I do not know. No matter I bought, they negotiated it. I am positive I will discover out someday, however I do not actually give a shit.”
If relinquishing management was the leap, Safdie’s filmmaking model was the security internet. O’Leary speaks concerning the director with a mixture of awe and amusement — notably his obsession with precision.
“He’s a perfectionist,” O’Leary says. “If one gentle isn’t good, he can’t begin.”
The method might be maddening within the second. Takes stretched on. Scenes have been rebuilt repeatedly, generally for 40 takes. At instances, Safdie and Bronstein would argue so intensely they’d “go yell at one another on the street.”
“It was incredible,” O’Leary laughs.
Kevin O’Leary in ‘Marty Supreme.’
No performing required
Marty Supreme hasn’t turned O’Leary into an actor. If something, it satisfied him he by no means was one.
“I really don’t assume I used to be performing,” he says. “I don’t know what performing is. I don’t know what the foundations of performing are.”
He didn’t take performing classes for the position and says he has no plans to begin now. As a substitute, O’Leary relied on preparation and intuition. He learn the script repeatedly to grasp the story in and out, however says, “I by no means memorized the traces.”
“I’m dyslexic. I’m actually shitty at memorizing something,” O’Leary says. He believes the training incapacity is a “superpower” that has helped him reach enterprise, and now, on set.
“I knew the place we have been within the story,” he says. “I knew what was taking place within the room. I might learn the room.”
As for what comes subsequent, O’Leary isn’t dashing to outline it. He says he’s already been despatched two different scripts — although he hasn’t learn them but — and for now, he’s extra targeted on having fun with what he simply completed.
“How do I get higher than this?” he asks. “To me, that is the top of filmmaking.”
