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When trying to wrap my head around my personality, my mind will often go to Cillian Murphy’s line from Oppenheimer in which he says, “Quantum mechanics says it’s both. How can it be both? It can’t. But it is. It’s paradoxical. And yet, it works.”
This is to say that I’m simultaneously extremely introverted and extroverted. I work from home and have since 2019, and honestly, wouldn’t have it any other way: I like being in my home, and team work exhausts me. Now that I’m married and in my 30s, my social life is no longer one of my top priorities. I’m a homebody. You give me the options of sitting on the couch and watching movies or going to a party and I’m choosing the former nine times out of ten.
But, when forced into social situations, I’m extremely personable. I’ll talk to anyone about anything. It’s why I’ve been able to forge a successful career as an interviewer, as I’m able to engage with actors and directors the same way I do with Joe at the bodega. I don’t really get star struck — in fact, I make a point of it to make them feel like they’re talking to a friend, not a fan.
This is the preface required to understand why my presence at the Marty Supreme afterparty — with the likes of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Academy Award winner Gwyneth Paltrow — was extremely, as J. Robert Oppenheimer explained to his lone student at the time, paradoxical. I really had no business being at such a place, but since I was, I figured I’d make the best of it. Here’s how it went down.
tomorrow night should be fun pic.twitter.com/pQIbTD9Le7
— Eric Italiano (@ericitaIiano) December 16, 2025
My wife and I got to the afterparty around 10:45, just as it was really starting to fill in. We grabbed ourselves some cocktails and posted up in perhaps the most comfortable chairs we’ve ever sat in for a glorious people watching session — you’ve never truly people-watched until you’ve done it at a Hollywood party, where the unrecognizable people are actually more interesting to wonder about than the famous ones. Not before passing through the food display, though, which included entire roasted pigs and a meat and cheese spread splayed out on a ping-pong table.
The first celebrity I encountered were Stavros Halkias. He wasn’t engaged in any conversation so I introduced myself, told him my wife and I loved Bugonia, and that he should keep fighting the good fight. Stravos comes across as genuinely humble in his public persona and I can confirm that’s the case behind the scenes, too.
Then came Chris “Mad Dog” Russo — he and Chalamet began a bromance last year around the premiere of A Complete Unknown, with Timmy flying him out to Paris for the premiere. We had made eye contact with/given a friendly nod to each other at the screening, so I guess he recognized me, and stopped to shake my hand. He introduced me to his son and launched right into still having to be up for First Take in the morning to argue with “Stevie.”
At this point, the legendary Sissy Spacek walked through the corridor, who I’d just seen a few weeks earlier alongside Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence in Die, My Love. She was excellent in that and has been throughout her five-decade-long career that’s seen her win an Oscar and star in films such as Badlands, Carrie, JFK, and many, many more. I flagged Ms. Spacek down and told her what a legend she is, and she couldn’t have been any sweeter. Extreme Grandmotherly vibes — I half expected her to ask us if we’d eaten yet.
Tyler the Creator passed by, and I threw out my hand for a dap and told him he did a great job in the film. He couldn’t have been less interested in me, but then again, I wouldn’t be either.
At this point, about an hour has passed, the drinks are flowing and the party is really beginning to get popping. Julia Fox — who starred in the Safdie’s film Uncut Gems — strolled through and my wife’s eyes lit up like heat-seeking missiles. My wife is a doctor and had literally never seen a single famous person before, and now here she was, rubbing elbows with Kanye West’s ex-girlfriend.
Given this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I pulled Julia aside and said my wife is too shy to introduce herself, which prompted Julia to sweetly offer to take a photo with her, and tell her that her husband (ME!) is a keeper. I also made sure she got a chance to tell Odessa A’zion how much she loves her in I Love LA, too.
Julia Fox told my wife that I’m a keeper last night pic.twitter.com/SoVsEH3Kcu
— Eric Italiano (@ericitaIiano) December 17, 2025
With my wife’s bucket list item checked off for the night, it was time for me to start locking in some conversations that I’d love to have, so I made my way over to Cooper Hoffman to tell him that The Long Walk was one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and how deeply I connected with his and David Jonsson’s performances. Cooper was incredibly gracious and gushed about working with Jonsson on another film in the near future, and hopefully on many more for the years to come.
Cooper with was Dylan O’Brien — they’re likely friends from their time shooting Saturday Night together — who I have interviewed in the past and have bonded with over being a Mets fan. I asked him what the hell he thinks David Stearns is doing with the roster right now, and he admonished me for not keeping the faith. Mets fans say “Ya gotta believe” and Dylan certainly still feels that way about this team. Hopefully I’ll get to connect with him again in a few weeks for his new Sam Raimi film Send Help.
Francesca Scorsese showed up, and I felt compelled to tell her that, in a room full of Hollywood celebrities, that I was actually quite star struck to see her given how genuinely sweet the content she makes with her father is, and how she’s introduced his work and his personality to an entire new generation. The Shark Tank squad was there, too, in support of Kevin O’Leary: Barbara Corcoran, Robert Herjavec, and Mark Cuban.
Gwyneth Paltrow was there, too, looking exactly how you’d expect an iconic movie star to look at a glitzy shindig. I didn’t realize it, but I was BSing with a dude in a suit that turned out to be her security guard. She and Padma Lakshmi were the only two celebs that I couldn’t work up the confidence — or rather, the cleverness — to try and speak to. In fact, when I breezed passed Padma, all I could muster was a meek “Hi, Padma!” like a middle school kid coming across his older crush in the hallway between classes.
The party is reaching a fever pitch at this point, with many of the A-listers heading upstairs to an even more exclusive section. One who was lingering in the common area, however, was actor and director Benny Safdie, who I’d met a few works earlier at an event for his recent film The Smashing Machine — which, similar to Josh and Marty Supreme, represented his solo directing debut.
Benny is starring in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which is undoubtedly the talk of the town in Hollywood these days. Given how high profile and under wrap the film is, I was going to play it cool and avoid the subject entirely. But as I walked by, the first thing I heard out of his mouth was “THE CYCLOPS!” — apparently people think that’s who he’s going to be playing — and my plan of action went out the window: I had to talk to him. And talk to him I did.
My conversation with Benny was the highlight of my night, as we probably talked for a solid 30 minutes about everything and anything I could think of. Locations he traveled to for The Odyssey, learning from Christoper Nolan, Nolan’s compliment of The Smashing Machine, his next project with The Rock and how excited he is to make it, and on and on we went.
By this point, the clock is nearing 2 a.m. and my wife and I have had more boujee glasses of Malbec than we can count, which only meant one thing: it’s Taco Bell time. We slammed a final shot at the bar, grabbed our complimentary Marty Supreme dad hat and went back across the river to Jersey City with our hearts and minds ready to DREAM BIG.
Marty Supreme will be released in theaters on Christmas Day. Check out the official trailer below.