The Disaster Artist

by Greg Sestero

  His cousin is caught, sent back. T—— is never clear as to why or how this happened. Nor is T—— clear on why he is allowed to stay. Maybe some of the women in the restaurant protect him. He’s a hardworking, innocent young man and they like him; perhaps his progress with French especially amuses the women. The chef of L’Amour, though, is terrible to him. One day he chases T—— out of the kitchen with a butcher knife. He calls T—— “le rat.” What has T—— done to deserve this? He’s asked the chef if he can have Sunday off. T—— stops complaining when it’s made clear to him that he will find himself back in the wild East, just like his cousin, if he doesn’t watch his step. He’s frightened. Some nights he weeps upon his dark basement bedroll. He worries he will never leave Strasbourg. Here he is, in the West, and he’s living in terror. To young T——, this makes no earthly sense at all.

  • • •

  With the Rooftop set fully deconstructed, Tommy decided to shoot a final Rooftop scene. No one could believe this. It meant having to build another rooftop set.

  The scene Tommy wanted to shoot involved Johnny announcing to everyone at his wonderful surprise birthday party that he and Lisa are expecting a child. There’s never a moment in the script where Lisa tells Johnny they’re expecting a child, but whatever. No one cared any longer about continuity or making any sense. We just wanted to finish the damn thing. So the crew started building.

  Tommy was sick with a cold and his voice was almost cartoonishly froggy. To combat that, he had drunk half a bottle of NyQuil. To combat the NyQuil, he’d drunk about seven Red Bulls. As a result Tommy wasn’t making much sense. One moment he was weird and peppy, the next he was leaning against a wall for support. Just about everything he said was slurred.

  The new rooftop needed no green-screen tomfoolery, since the nighttime birthday party scene was going to be shot against a wall in the Birns & Sawyer parking lot. Tommy wanted candles and Christmas lights everywhere. “Have fancy stuff,” he kept saying. “Have style. I want lots of style.”

  While the crew was putting together the new rooftop, Tommy wanted to shoot my half of the conversation that Mark and Lisa have over the phone at the very beginning of the film. It was supposed to be shot with me sitting in a car, so I suggested we use my Lumina. Tommy didn’t want that: not fancy enough. Tommy also didn’t want the scene shot in his Benz. Absolutely not. “License plate issues,” Tommy said. I reminded him that the shot would be entirely of my profile; you wouldn’t even see the car’s steering wheel or tires, much less its license plate. Tommy didn’t care. He asked around among the crew and learned that one of them drove a big blue Buick. Perfect. The Buick was a prototypically American car, and that’s exactly what Tommy wanted. I got into the Buick, which was parked in the Birns & Sawyer parking lot, and prepared myself for the scene, with Juliette standing just off camera doing her half of the lines.

  Tommy’s dialogue can be genuinely amusing, but now, with all eyes focused on me sitting in a parked car, the lines became curiously difficult to get out. I mean, who tells someone “Oh, hey, I’m very busy right now” when he answers his phone? Who then says the same thing in his next sentence? Well, who else but Tommy? My first few takes were so uncomfortable and terrible that I threw in a few lines that made Mark sound more human. Tommy caught my changes. When I tried to explain why I’d ad-libbed, he didn’t listen. “Greg,” he said, “say the lines. Don’t change anything. It’s simple. Mark is Johnny’s best friend, what’s so difficult?”

  Yes, I said. I know all that. How about, I suggested, we give Mark some backstory? Like, say, maybe Mark is an undercover narcotics cop or something, and when Lisa calls him he’s on, like, a stakeout. That would explain why he keeps his weed stashed in an Animal Crackers box up on the Rooftop behind a false brick, wouldn’t it? I mean, if the guy smokes weed, why wouldn’t he just keep it in his apartment like a normal person? A weed-smoking narco might have to be more clandestine than that. Mark-as-narco would also explain why he says “It’s clear!” after the whole Chris-R drug-dealer citizen’s-arrest thing. “It’s clear!” sounded like cop language to me. Tommy heard me out, thought about it, and said, “We don’t like this stuff. I’m director. You do the scene as in script.” (I had a good laugh when, years later, the people who created the Room video game imagined a backstory for Mark that was virtually identical to the one I proposed to Tommy.)

  I got back into the car. Knowing Tommy would hate it, yet wanting to disguise my despair, I decided to wear sunglasses for the next couple of takes. As soon as I put them on, Tommy rushed over, saying, “No, no—I don’t like this primitive stuff.”

  In frustration I threw Mark’s big prehistoric cell phone down on the seat next to me.

  Tommy leaned into the car and looked at me. “You know what? We will not have this, okay? Do you upset me just for kicks?”

  In the end Tommy consented to let me wear the “primitive” sunglasses. I still think it’s hilariously strange that it’s never revealed in the film what Mark does for a living, or where exactly he lives, or why he smokes Rooftop weed, or why he tries to kill Peter, or why he so suddenly turns against Johnny late in the film, or where he and Johnny take Chris-R, or why he does any number of things. He’s a character without a head and without a tail. In terms of characterization, Mark makes André Toulon look like the English Patient.

  Right after we did this scene Tommy had an idea for yet another new scene. A few weeks before, anticipating promotional stills, Tommy had purchased ill-fitting tuxedos for all the film’s male characters. My tux was so unfortunately roomy that I needed a lifeguard to safely wear the thing: I was drowning in Joseph Abboud. Tommy now said he wanted Peter, Denny, Mark, and Johnny wearing tuxedos while playing football. Sandy had objections. First and foremost, this was Kyle Vogt’s last available day on set. Didn’t Tommy want to use Kyle’s last day shooting Peter’s remaining scenes? Tommy didn’t. Why are the characters in tuxes and playing football? Was it for a wedding picture? A sort of pathetic bachelor party? Tommy didn’t know. All he said was that it was a “very important scene.” Sandy finally caved, asking anyone who would listen, “What on earth do you say to that?”

  Before we played tuxedo football, though, Tommy told me he wanted me to shave off my beard. He wanted Mark to walk into Johnny’s condo freshly shaved. He called this a “moment.”

  I told Tommy that under no circumstances would I shave my beard.

  “Listen, I have to tell you, I’m sorry, but you must shave it. Trust me on this.” We were standing next to the brick wall outside of Birns & Sawyer, where he wanted to shoot the football stuff. The catering woman walked up to us, handing us both pastrami sandwiches. I told Tommy I didn’t want mine; he could have it if he wanted it. Tommy looked at me and said, “I see what you do. You want me to have big stomach. You don’t want me to be attractive, so I’m not competition.” Tommy was serious about this, I’m pretty sure.

  Rather than address that particular lunacy, I sighed and said, “I’m not going to shave.” I felt like a different person in my beard. It was also a decent disguise. If The Room was ever released, I would quietly change my credited name in the film to Greg Pestermo—or I could take my mom’s stage-name advice and go with Greg Paris. Either way, the beard was a key component of my Room anonymity strategy.

  “No,” Tommy said insistently. “You have to shave. Just trust me.”

  “I never agreed to this.”

  “But it’s much better without! Much younger, much more American.”

  I thought of Amber, who was in San Diego at the time, and how much she hated my beard. She even kept a pre-beard picture of me in her purse to remind her what I used to look like. A clean-shaven boyfriend might be a nice surprise for her when she got back.

  Amy, the makeup artist, went down the street to buy clippers and a razor. Later, as I headed to the Birns & Sawyer office bathroom to rid myself of Beardacus, I was shocked to see Markus, Tommy’s spy, following me with a camera. Tommy wanted him to fi
lm me while I shaved. That was creepy. Even worse, Tommy wanted to be right next to me, analyzing every pass of the razor, as the deed was done. That was Single White Female–meets–Tom Ripley creepy. “Be careful, take your time,” Tommy said, as I pulled the razor across my cheek. “Slow down. Don’t cut it. Don’t cut. Don’t cut. We don’t rush you.” He was directing and recording my shaving. When I emerged, Sandy said, “You’ve lost ten years!” I hoped not, because that meant I was fourteen.

  Walking into the condo set for my big, freshly shaved close-up was almost certainly my low point in the film. If you look at my face in the dailies, you can detect the precise moment in which my dreams of being an actor are summarily snuffed out. Having to caress my own chin as Johnny and Denny ooh and aah over my freshly shaven face was the most embarrassing scene I’ve ever done or will ever do. I had no idea why Tommy was so anxious to film this scene, until he called me Babyface during one take—the take he wound up using.

  The rest of the sequence is just as bad. Not only are the tuxes unexplained, but Tommy had Peter and me arrive one after the other, my doorbell ring coming right on top of his, as though we’re emerging from a clown car on the other side of the door. When Tommy said he wanted us all to end the scene doing his ridiculous chicken imitation—flapping our arms, saying “cheep-cheep”—I almost walked off the set. In the end I gave it everything I had, which was nothing. I barely opened my mouth at all; I moved my arms even less. You really do have to admire the comparative gusto with which Philip cheep-cheeped.

  • • •

  A few nights later we filmed Johnny’s birthday party scene on the new rooftop. Tommy’s line in this scene was to say, “Hey, everybody! I have an announcement to make. We’re expecting!” After this, everyone was supposed to file up to him and shake his hand. A very simple scene. But first Tommy had to say his line. By this point, Tommy had come to grips with the fact that he couldn’t remember his lines. All day he’d been walking around, looking at the script, saying the line over and over to himself or to anybody who was in close proximity. Unfortunately, all this recitation had been bad for his still cold-strained vocal cords. I guess it was sort of poetically perfect: The one time Tommy had adequately prepared, his voice was so shot that he couldn’t get the lines out.

  “Hey, everybody,” he said, his voice all trembly and broken. “I have an announcement to make. We’re expect—” And then he would cough with tubercular explosiveness.

  When Tommy finally felt prepared to give the scene another go, he mentioned that it might be good to have some footballs being thrown around after Johnny makes his announcement—this on a roof, mind you. “No, no, no,” Sandy said instantly. “We’ll be here all night with that damn football. No more football!”

  Byron, a crew guy who more or less appeared out of nowhere to take charge of the dramatic-motivation and second-director aspects of The Room (Sandy had by this point given up on helping with anything other than script supervision), also voiced his objections, though not within earshot of Tommy. Byron wore his ball cap backward at all times and carried himself like the South Carolina–bred former marine dude he was, but he was smart and canny, with a big voice, and for some reason Tommy listened to him. Between him and Sandy, Tommy was compelled to give up on having any footballs at Johnny’s party.

  Tommy finally managed to say “We’re expecting!” without expectorating a lung, after which some of the filmed takes were reviewed on the monitor. They looked as hilarious as anything filmed so far. Tommy fretted for a while and decided that the problem was that the party wasn’t enough of a “thing.” The way the scene was blocked, the shot just opened with Johnny standing there. Tommy didn’t know how to create dynamic camera movement—The Room’s cameras move around about as much as statuary—so someone suggested we film Juliette from behind, with a dolly shot, as she comes into the party. I’m fairly certain Tommy had never heard of a dolly shot. When it was explained to him what the shot would look like, Tommy loved it.

  The crew set up again. The dolly camera follows Lisa very, very slowly into the party; given what it’s actually accomplishing, this is an excruciatingly long shot. It’s like the Copa scene from Goodfellas if Goodfellas had been directed by a malfunctioning R2-D2. After the dolly stops and Lisa moves out of frame, Johnny steps up to make his announcement. No matter how many times he ran through this, Tommy couldn’t find his mark when he stepped into the scene. You can see Tommy, in the finished film, look down at his feet to figure out where to stop. Byron had to talk Tommy through the whole thing: “Okay. Start moving. Look up. Nope, you passed it. Go back. Now you’re looking into the camera. And you passed it again. Start over. And go. Look up. You missed it again. Don’t look at me. Just ignore me and start over. Okay: Go. Look up. And you passed it.”

  One of The Room’s more amusing audience rituals concerns this scene. There’s a moment right before Johnny makes his announcement in which he seems to look down and to the right and wave at someone. Consequently, some audiences send a small gaggle of people to converge in the bottom right-hand corner of the movie screen, where they gleefully return Johnny’s wave. So what’s really going on here? Well, after so many blown takes, Tommy is signaling to the cameraman that he’s ready, he’s got it, let’s roll film, motherfuckers. And yes, a take in which Tommy annihilates the fourth wall by motioning to the cameraman was the best take they got.

  I thought about how sad this party scene really was. Having all of Johnny’s closest friends and future wife gather together to celebrate his birthday—with a child on the way, no less—was Tommy’s dream life. But it was a dream life in line with what he thought an American would want. After all, Johnny’s life in The Room doesn’t quite resemble anyone’s idea of a perfect life: working in a bank, not getting your promotion, living in a crappy condo, having a future mother-in-law all up in your business. Johnny’s life was everything Tommy had no chance of having, on the one hand, but it was also what few people would actually want for themselves, were they lucky enough to design their lives. Tommy didn’t know what he didn’t know about the dreams of others.

  • • •

  T—— is calling himself Pierre now and often receives compliments on how quickly he’s learned to speak passable French. His situation has in many ways improved—he’s living in a hostel a few streets away from Strasbourg’s Gothic cathedral—but he’s still working in a restaurant. One freezing December night the Strasbourg police raid Pierre’s hostel. Drugs are being sold on the premises, but Pierre knows nothing about this. All the same, he’s nabbed during the sweep. Of course, he has no papers, and two officers cuff him and bring him to the Strasbourg police station.

  They take his fingerprints and sit him down in an interrogation room. The officers are pure French-German Alsatians and, in T——’s mind, embody the worst of both nationalities. They call Pierre an “Eastern invader” while he maintains his innocence. Then he’s slapped once, twice, a third time. The police officers are laughing. Pierre can tell they are enjoying this.

  The officers put a written confession before Pierre, which they demand he sign. Pierre refuses. More slaps. They strip him to his underwear, leer, and say something sinister about “checking inside his ass.” Pierre is shivering now; this interrogation room is scarcely heated at all. One of the men unholsters his gun and hits Pierre on the forehead with the butt. Pierre is crying; he’s terrified by the appearance of the pistol. “Maybe we’ll kill you and put you out on the street,” the man who struck him says. “No one here cares about you, do they?”

  “No,” the other man says, unholstering his own pistol. “Let’s make this more fun. Let’s play Russian roulette.”

  Pierre begins to pray out loud. “God, protect me,” he says. “God, protect me.”

  “God won’t help you here,” one of them says. “God doesn’t help Communists.”

  Pierre tells the men he’s Catholic and is struck again on the forehead for this impudence. His forehead has broken open now; he’s bleed
ing. Pierre makes the sign of the cross.

  “Okay,” one of them says. With that, he shoves his pistol into Pierre’s mouth. Pierre gasps and chokes. His face is wet with tears and blood. He can’t stop shivering. The man removes the barrel from Pierre’s mouth as roughly as he stuffed it in and shows him that there is, in fact, one bullet in the chamber. Pierre looks down at the man’s shirt and sees a name: FREDERIC. The man realizes that Pierre has seen his name. He leans close to Pierre and says, very quietly, “If you say a word about this, I’ll kill you and your entire family. Don’t worry—I’ll find them.” Pierre knows that he would hunt down Frederic, and Frederic’s entire family, and make them all pay for this night if he could.

  When Pierre describes this story many years later, he will weep. He will say he survived two rounds of Russian roulette, and even maintain that one of the officers fired his pistol into the wall to frighten him, though it’s hardly credible that anyone would discharge his weapon in a police station interrogation room.

  In the end Pierre is pushed out into the night by the laughing police officers. He stumbles home, bends down to grab a handful of snow to hold against the cut on his forehead. France is no better than some Communist police state. He knows he has to leave France. But how?

  He is taken in by an older gentleman. That is all Pierre will say. “Taken in”: It could describe a dozen varieties of human interaction. The man lets Pierre use his phone and, sometimes, sleep in his apartment. Then, one night, the older gentleman approaches Pierre, who has just hung up the man’s phone. The gentleman is naked and offers Pierre several francs to suck him off. Pierre will later say he took the money, ripped it up, and threw the pieces into the stunned gentleman’s face. As Pierre is leaving the gentleman’s apartment, he sees an ornate mirror. He bends down, grabs a heavy knickknack from a coffee table, and hurls it at the mirror, which shatters. As with so many of Pierre’s stories, it’s hard to know precisely what to believe of this or what’s really being said or admitted to.