Koto Kawaguchi

Kawaguchi has been playing table tennis professionally since 2019 and is affiliated with Toyota Motor Corporation.^[2][3] He has won multiple titles in Japanese national deaf table tennis competitions, including first place in singles at the 53rd National Sports Competition for the Deaf in 2019.^[3] At the 2022 Summer Deaflympics in Caxias do Sul, Brazil, he won a bronze medal in the men's team event.^[1][3]

In 2025, Kawaguchi was cast in Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme as Koto Endo, a Japanese table tennis champion who serves as the main rival to Timothée Chalamet's protagonist Marty Mauser.^[4] The character, who is depicted as deaf in the film, was partially inspired by Kawaguchi himself and partially by Hiroji Satoh, a Japanese champion who competed against Marty Reisman in the 1950s.^[5]

Toyota produced an audition video of Kawaguchi playing table tennis and shared it with the film's production through a translator.^[2] Kawaguchi had no prior acting experience and has said he initially thought the casting offer was a scam.^[2] The film features live table tennis play in its match sequences, with Kawaguchi performing opposite Chalamet.^[6]