Timothée Chalamet was dead-set on immortalising his backside in A24’s Marty Supreme after refusing to use a butt-double for its already-infamous spanking scene.

The 30-year-old actor reportedly insisted that his own behind was spanked with a ping-pong paddle during what is arguably one the sports drama’s most memorable moments.

During the Josh Safdie-directed movie, young table-tennis champion Marty Mauser, played by Chalamet, tries to achieve his table tennis dreams by accepting entrepreneur Milton Rockwell’s offer to play in the upcoming World Championsips.

The offer comes with one condition – that his bare backside is subjected to a humiliating public paddling in front of guests at a prestigious New York party.

Speaking to Variety, Canadian actor and businessman, Kevin O’Leary, who plays the paddle-wielding Rockwell, recalled Chalamat being asked if he wanted to use a butt-double for the scene.

Seemingly not content content with anyone else’s backside taking centre-stage, Chalamet insisted that it should be his own rear in the shot – no ifs, ands or butts about it.

“When it came time to whack him, there was a stunt ass. There was a double,” O’Leary said. “[Chalamet] wouldn’t do it. He said he’ll do it himself. He didn’t want some other ass immortalised.”

Chalamet’s cheeks were so rock-solid that a fake paddle prop, designed to soften the blows, broke on the first hit, meaning a real paddle had to be used instead.

O’Leary added that the segment, which he said was a “pivotal scene of humiliation,” took hours of spanking to get right. Safdie reportedly shot 40 takes by the end of the day, which lasted until 4am.

“Josh was saying, ‘You’ve got to wind up harder,’ … I was really whacking him,” he recalled.

O’Leary told Variety that he felt the paddling scene was a necessary comeuppance for the protagonist, saying he had “pissed off” Rockwell so many times that “capital punishment was correct.”

“I never felt satisfied that he suffered enough for what he did,” he added. “Even now, I’m still p**sed.”