Mitchell Wenig had never acted in anything when the Safdie brothers noticed him eating lunch in a Tribeca diner. They walked over and asked if he wanted to be in a movie. He said sure, then asked whether his two friends could come too. They told him they only wanted him.
That was sometime before 2010. Since then he has appeared in seven films and specials, among them Uncut Gems, Funny Pages, and Marty Supreme, the Josh Safdie ping-pong picture that walked into the Academy Awards this March with nine nominations. Over the same fifteen years, he has sat for exactly one interview.
Table of Contents
Who Is Mitchell in Marty Supreme?
Wenig plays Mitch, a henchman working for a gangster named Ezra Mishkin. Mishkin is played by Abel Ferrara, the director behind King of New York, which tells you roughly how the rest of the cast list runs. Fran Drescher plays the mother of Timothรฉe Chalamet’s character. Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank took his first acting role as a globe-trotting ballpoint pen magnate. Gwyneth Paltrow plays a movie star.
Safdie has been open about the thinking behind it. He told the Wall Street Journal he treats stars as something already out there in the world, waiting to be lined up with the right part. His casting director, Jennifer Venditti, described looking for outsiders and misfits, people with some life on their faces.
Marty Supreme left the ceremony with nothing. Best Picture went to One Battle After Another, and Michael B. Jordan took Best Actor for Sinners. The film has been on HBO Max since April.
Who Are the Twins in Uncut Gems?
They aren’t twins. Mitchell and Stewart Wenig are brothers who resemble each other closely enough that people struggle to tell them apart, which is where the question comes from. In Uncut Gems the two of them play debt collectors hounding Adam Sandler’s character over $32,000 he owes them.
Stewart told Vulture in 2020 that the confusion goes further than most people realize. Some viewers watched the scene and assumed the pair were actually Josh and Benny Safdie. The casting director had wanted him in all three of his brother’s scenes; he made it into one.
He also wrote roughly ten songs for the film, including one titled “Uncut Gems,” and handed the directors a CD of them. None of it made the cut.
Where the Rest of the Credits Come From
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | John’s Gone | Mugger |
| 2019 | Uncut Gems | Larry |
| 2022 | Funny Pages | Jared |
| 2024 | Adam Sandler: Love You | Mitchell |
| 2024 | Hustle Mode | Hammer Man |
| 2024 | Hoop Dreams 3D | Wendell |
| 2025 | Marty Supreme | Mitch |
Four of the seven came from Josh Safdie, two of those co-directed with Benny. Funny Pages was Owen Kline’s film with both Safdies producing, and when it opened in 2022, A24 posted a clip of Wenig’s scene to its own account. Hustle Mode and Hoop Dreams 3D are shorts by other filmmakers working the same downtown circuit. The second one was paid for through GoFundMe.
The Autograph Habit That Keeps Ending Up on Screen
Wenig collects celebrity autographs and memorabilia, and he was doing it well before the film work started. He knew Johnny Ramone well enough to trade posters and signatures with him.
Safdie has folded the hobby into the work twice now. In the Netflix special Adam Sandler: Love You, Wenig turns up as a fan who has somehow obtained photographs taken inside Sandler’s house. On the Marty Supreme set, he went after Gwyneth Paltrow’s autograph, and Safdie had to pull him aside and explain that this wasn’t something you did at work. Safdie told that story himself on a podcast last year.
What Nobody Has Reported About Mitchell Wenig
There’s no published birth year. No hometown beyond New York City and Long Island, where he said in 2020 that he splits his time. Nothing on what he does when a set isn’t calling. No Wikipedia page. His IMDb listing carries the seven credits and not much else.
What does exist is that one Vulture interview, and it’s an odd document. He couldn’t recall what he read at his Uncut Gems audition. He mentioned that three women recognized him at a Dunkin’ Donuts on Long Island, none of whom knew each other. A train conductor asked for his autograph without having seen the film. When the reporter ran out of questions, he asked her how he’d done.
He also said he wished he’d had more screen time, and that he hoped to land a few more movies. He’s been in five since.
