by Greg Sestero
Years later, Thomas will memorialize Drew Caffrey, who died in 1999, by crediting him as not only an executive producer of The Room but also as its San Francisco casting director. What purpose do these false attributions actually serve? Thomas will never say.
One day, Thomas admits to Caffrey that his real dream is not to be a successful retailer or real-estate tycoon. Sure, that is certainly nice, but it’s not his real dream. Thomas’s real dream, he says to Caffrey, is to be an actor. No, a movie star. “Well,” Caffrey says, “if that’s the case, make sure you put yourself front and center. Be the star. Make yourself the star. Don’t think about anybody else.”
Long after Thomas has started going by Tommy, he will describe this as the best advice he has ever received.
• • •
We got some but not all of the exterior shots Tommy wanted on our first day in San Francisco. While going over the following day’s schedule, Tommy surprised us all by saying, “So I have idea for couple scenes. In the first, maybe Johnny and Mark talk in a coffee shop. Then maybe they play football. Simple stuff.”
Todd Barron looked alarmed by this news. “You mean,” he said, “like acting shots?”
“Yes,” Tommy said.
“Do you have a script?”
“Don’t worry about the script at this time. Just do your camera stuff. We take care of this.”
Until now, I hadn’t truly believed that the postbreakup therapy session Tommy conducted for me would ever find its way into The Room. Among other quandaries, where would Tommy find, at the last minute, a coffee shop that would allow us to film, or the extras that would be needed to fill in the background? But to my shock, Todd Barron, Joe, and Zsolt all warmed to Tommy’s proposed scenes immediately. I suspect they saw it as a way to get paid to spend more time in a great city, with San Francisco’s own Willy Wonka guiding them.
By eight o’clock the next morning, we were trolling for parking spaces near an already bustling Fisherman’s Wharf. “Why are we filming here?” I asked Tommy, scanning vainly for a parking spot, while the crew trailed close behind. “This is the most difficult place to park in the city.”
“You have to trust me, young man,” Tommy said. “I have resources.” He directed me toward a bank of private spots on Beach Street. That’s when I noticed the sign hanging above the corner building: STREET FASHIONS USA. I recalled seeing the logo in Tommy’s condo and remembered him saying that he’d done marketing for Street Fashions years before. Two massive American flags—so massive I suspected they could be seen from space—were snapping in the wind on the building’s rooftop. The four-story building contained other businesses, including a little joint called Pizza Zone. A dingy banner that read CONSTRUCTION SALE hung over a Bunyan-size plastic blue-jeans statue affixed above the door’s entrance; both banner and statue looked like they had been up for quite a while.
After we entered, the first thing I noticed was the staircase. It was the same staircase on which Tommy had Shakespeared in the demo-reel commercial that scored him his SAG card. The second thing I noticed was that Street Fashions felt more like a warehouse than a store. I don’t remember seeing any cash registers or anyone working there. There was, however, merchandise on display, and a lot of it. Why would a retail store in one of the most heavily touristed parts of the city not be open on a weekday?
Tommy started up the stairs to the second floor, which was being used as some kind of storage space. “We shoot Alcatraz from roof,” he told us. Tommy was clearly familiar with this building; I assumed he’d called in beforehand for approval to use it. Tommy pressed the button for the elevator on our left, which would take us to the rooftop. When it opened an older man walked out. I thought he might be the store’s owner or manager—until he engaged Tommy. The man, it transpired, had a question for Tommy: Could he maybe sublet his space for a little while? Tommy and the man discussed the matter only briefly, but during the discussion, it came out that the man was one of the building’s tenants—a successful landscape architect—who was paying $8,000 a month for his space. Tommy nonchalantly told the guy, “No problem. We talk. Call me.”
I thought, Wait. Does Tommy manage this building? Does he own it? I’d known him for four years and he’d never mentioned owning a building. This was premium San Francisco real estate.
We reached the spacious rooftop, which offered a gorgeous view of Alcatraz and a panoramic vista of greater San Francisco. It was so perfect that I couldn’t help but wonder why we hadn’t used it to shoot The Room’s Rooftop scenes. Those scenes could have been shot here, with a small crew, in a few days—sparing Tommy tens of thousands of dollars. Todd Barron, Joe, and Zsolt set up and shot the Alcatraz footage that eventually wound up in The Room’s opening credits. After that, they began shooting footage from every angle on the roof. These shots would later be composited onto Tommy’s green screens. They filmed from the beginning of a sunny morning until deep into a foggy afternoon, thereby accounting for why the weather in the Rooftop scenes is so consistently inconsistent from one shot to the next.
I wandered over to the flagpoles from which the massive American flags were flying. “For your information,” Tommy called over as I looked up at them, “those are the largest American flags in San Francisco.” Something had been engraved at the base of each pole: TPW. So he did own this building. Only Tommy, a man of supersize patriotism, would buy two flags, and only Tommy would make sure they were this big. Was owning this building one of the secrets he’d alluded to in the car ride to Sausalito? If so, what was next—that Tommy really was the Zodiac Killer?
Beach Street, San Francisco—Street Fashions headquarters.
• • •
The next morning Tommy and I arrived at Beach Street’s Flag Central some time before the crew. Tommy unlocked the door to Pizza Zone. “You see?” he said. “I told you. I have resources. We can use this for coffee shop scene.” It was clear to me by now that he owned the entire building, so I wasn’t really surprised when Tommy walked directly to the register, pulled out the cash drawer, and stashed the entire thing in a cabinet. “People’s fingers, you see, like money,” he told me. “Before you know it, it all disappears.”
The night before I’d put out a quick casting call on some San Francisco acting websites, requesting headshots and résumés. By midnight I had the extras. Shortly after Todd Barron, Joe, and Zsolt arrived, the extras began trickling in. I was surprised to see the actor Tommy had called in to play the coffee shop’s cheesecake-pushing proprietor: a woman named Padma, who was Tommy’s old scene partner from his Stella catastrophe in Jean Shelton’s class.
Tommy was determined, much to everyone’s puzzlement, to film every extra placing an order. “You,” he said, pointing to a brunette, “get a large peanut butter cup with extra whip cream.” He acted as though he’d conceived some masterstroke of cinema verité. “You need to say your orders with enunciation. Proclamation! And remember: Be yourself.” Even the normally unflappable Todd Barron was baffled by this. “You don’t need to hear everyone’s order, Tommy,” he said. “Let’s just get one.”
“No,” Tommy said. “You don’t know San Francisco, my friend. We need impression of very busy coffee shop.”
Joe stepped forward and pointed out that sitting through thirty seconds of complete strangers ordering food did nothing for the scene. Tommy wouldn’t hear any of this. “This is real life,” he explained. “What do you expect? You want to be fake? Not me. I hate fake stuff.”
Forty-five minutes later, the coffee shop scene wrapped and we were on our way to Pacific Heights—Tommy’s dream neighborhood—to find, and shoot, the exterior of Johnny and Lisa’s home. Tommy wanted a mansion exterior, which made no sense at all. At various points in The Room it’s strongly implied that Johnny and Lisa live in an apartment building; Denny and Mark apparently live in the same building; and all the characters appear to share access to its rooftop. But Tommy wanted a lavish mansion and eventually spotted the place he wanted to shoot. Todd Barr
on again brought up the need for permits, especially in a neighborhood like Pacific Heights.
“It’s no problem,” Tommy said. “This is different territory. San Francisco is not Los Angeles. We shoot. Sa-sa-sa-style. We leave. Don’t be so conservative, my God.”
We set up, prepared the shot, and were about to start filming when a police cruiser pulled up and asked what we were shooting and to see our permit.
“We just shooting video,” Tommy explained to the passenger-side cop. “It’s very simple thing.”
“Okay,” the cop said. “You still need a permit or you can’t film here.”
“This is not professional stuff,” Tommy said. “It’s just the video thing.”
“Sir,” the cop said, his expression turning dark and authoritarian, “show me your permit or you’re going to need to leave.”
“I’m sorry,” Tommy said, “but I disagree with you on your statement.”
At this point Todd Barron, Joe, Zsolt, the makeup artist, and I began briskly packing up everything that had a lens or a cord. Tommy continued to needlessly restate his case as we got into the cars and drove away.
Tommy eventually settled on a quieter street in the Marina, right off Lombard. Tommy’s pick for Johnny and Lisa’s condo this time was a handsome town house duplex, which made at least slightly more sense than a mansion. He urged everyone to set up while he changed into his favorite dark, baggy suit. Moments later Todd Barron was filming Tommy as he walked along the sidewalk in front of the building. I wondered if its occupants were going to come out and ask Tommy why he was grabbing their newspaper and ascending their stairs. Joe and Zsolt manned each side of Todd Barron’s camera, trying to hide it from passersby. I’d been given lookout duty, but I also had to get into my hideous costume, which came courtesy of Street Fashions: a pair of running pants two sizes too big, a long-sleeved T-shirt, black tennis shoes, and a dorky visor.
The next shot placed Tommy behind the wheel of his white Mercedes-Benz C280—the car he’d been driving when I first met him—as he pulled into the town house’s driveway. As he was turning, Tommy narrowly and harrowingly avoided being killed by an oncoming city bus. When we told Tommy how close he’d come to dying, he said he didn’t notice any bus. “Don’t worry about bus,” he said. “Worry about scene. Now let’s get a shot of me and Greg coming home from jogging!” He and I got into his Benz. Todd Barron and Joe rolled film. Tommy pulled up to the town house and we climbed out. Cut, print—another shot successfully in the can. I was astonished by this burst of ruthless efficiency. Could this be the same man who had taken an entire afternoon to say “I did not hit her!”?
The next stop was Golden Gate Park, where we began shooting Tommy’s and my jogging and football-throwing scenes. In the finished film I begin this sequence wearing my ugly visor but it disappears by the second shot. That’s because, almost immediately after we started filming, the wind tore the visor off my head. I was about to chase after it but Tommy stopped me. “Forget this primitive hat,” he said. “You look like parking lot man.” I let the visor go, and, with it, any last lingering chance at maintaining continuity.
From there we went to the Polo Fields—to the exact spot, in fact, where I had played soccer with Tommy years before. The first few times we ran into frame, Tommy dropped the football when I threw it to him. “Throw me ball correct way, dammit!” he said. He dropped the next pass, too, and then accused me of trying to make him look bad on film, as though Tommy’s remarkable case of alligator hands were my fault. On the next run I gave him a soft, floating lob, which he also dropped. “Dammit, Greg! Why you throw this tricky stuff?” His anger was getting uncomfortably livid. On my last attempt, I threw the ball to him as softly as possible, saying, “Catch this,” in French.
Tommy’s eyes turned into grim, warlike slits. “No French!” he said. “No French words, dammit!” The crew watched in awe as Tommy abruptly charged and tackled me. Tommy was vehemently opposed to the inclusion of any foreign languages in his movie, and he hated it when other people knew he spoke a language other than English. Tommy kept his rather awkward tackle of me in the film. It looks playful on-screen, but it was anything but in reality.
Principal photography on The Room was a single location away from being complete. The last task was to find a flower shop willing to host a film shoot for several hours with no warning. Tommy told us he had a flower shop in mind at the intersection of sixteenth and Dehon Streets, a few blocks from his condo. We found its two owners sitting and chatting. Tommy’s tantalizing offer: He would give the women twenty dollars in exchange for a dozen roses and their permission to film in their flower shop for the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t expect them to go for these terms, but to my surprise the women looked at each other and said, “Sure! Why not?” Tommy was so pleased that he announced he would let the women play themselves. Then again, Tommy needed them to play themselves, because he didn’t have any extras.
Todd Barron came into the store and found Tommy saying, “I want people! I want life! We can’t just have empty store!” He then turned to the makeup artist and charmed her into extra duty. (She’s the woman browsing through gift cards in the finished film.) It had been a harried, frantic couple of days and Tommy was now buzzing ferociously on energy drinks. “I’m losing my mind!” he kept saying as the crew set up. Tommy was back to being the hilarious, fun-loving, easygoing San Francisco weirdo I’d first met. Todd Barron had his camera ready. Tommy stood next to him, sugar-stoned and chattering away: “Make sure you get this thing. Details, Mr. Cameraman. I want to have these flowers also in shot. And make sure you get the girl looking at cards. Very important. Also, when I enter, give me good tight close-up. The more lights the better.”
Todd Barron looked through his eyepiece, breathing himself into some refined Zen state. “You are missing roses,” Tommy said to him. “We must have better close-up also when I put sunglasses on my forehead.” Todd Barron stopped what he was doing, turned to Tommy, and said, “Just get in the damn shot.” It had taken until the very last location of the very last day, but Tommy had finally rattled the single most laid-back man on the crew.
Tommy rehearsed walking in and out of the flower shop at least ten times while the owner memorized her few lines of dialogue. “We have moment-to-moment acting in my film,” he said to her. “Words are secondary!” Truer words have perhaps never been spoken. The dialogue Tommy composed for the flower shop scene, which flies back and forth like some sort of postmodern “Who’s on First?” sketch, has the super-compressed density of experimental verse:
Hi
Can I help you
Yeah can I have a dozen red roses please
Oh hi Johnny I didn’t know it was you here you go
That’s me how much is it
That’ll be eighteen dollars
Here you go keep the change hi doggie
You’re my favorite customer
Thanks a lot bye
Bye bye
The flower shop owner, I think, deserves some kind of Neo Oscar for selling what might be the scene’s funniest line: “Oh, hi, Johnny—I didn’t know it was you.” You didn’t know it was him? Who did you think it was?
Tommy did the scene several times. No matter how badly he messed up his dialogue, he immediately headed over to Todd Barron and asked, “How this come out?” He wanted to watch playback after every take.
It wasn’t until one of the very last takes that Tommy noticed something none of us had, which was the tiny pug dog sitting on the counter. The little guy hadn’t moved at all since we’d come in. Not once. He just sat there, motionless. When Tommy finally noticed the dog, it was in the middle of a take. Going with it, Tommy patted it on its tiny, wrinkly noggin and said, “Hi, doggie,” and walked away.
We watched the scene on playback. It was perfect. To paraphrase the Dude, the estimable hero of The Big Lebowski, it really tied the scene together. In fact, this might be Tommy’s most candid moment in the entire film—and the clearest evi
dence of the lovable and endearing side of his personality. Hi, doggie. It was warped, accidental genius.
Before running the scene one final time, Tommy wanted to talk to the flower shop owner about her dog. “So cute,” he said, as he petted the dog. “Hopefully he doesn’t bite me, my God.”
I think the owner somehow misinterpreted this as Tommy wanting the dog out of the next take. “Well,” she said, “he’s actually really old now. He just sits around. He won’t bother anyone. He kind of rules over this counter.”
Tommy nodded, smiling, still gazing down at the motionless little dog. “So is it real thing?”
The flower shop owner looked at Tommy uncertainly. “I’m sorry?” she said, after a moment.
“Your dog,” Tommy said, unfazed. “Is it real thing?”
The woman kept looking at Tommy, probably trying to figure out whether this man who’d taken over her store was really asking if her dog was real. Did Tommy think it was a robot? An android pug of some kind?
“Yes,” the woman said finally. “My dog is a real thing.”
With that, we ran the scene a final time, after which filming for The Room officially wrapped. That night we all celebrated at a restaurant called Tommy’s Joynt. Yes. That was its name. After four months of filming, The Room was finally in the can.
• • •