Trailer
Plot summary
Greg Sestero is a shy acting student in San Francisco in 1998 when a classmate, Tommy Wiseau, gives a wild, incoherent reading of a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. Greg admires his fearlessness and asks to read scenes with him. Tommy, who refuses to discuss his age, his past or the source of his money, drives Greg around and pushes him to perform loudly and openly. The two move into an apartment Tommy owns in Los Angeles, where Greg signs with agent Iris Burton, auditions, and dates Amber, a bartender. Tommy finds no takers at all. Rejected and frustrated, he decides to write a screenplay so that he and Greg can star in it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Disaster Artist (2017)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- At the 2017 San Sebastián International Film Festival the film became the first American picture to win the top prize, the Golden Shell, since A Thousand Years of Good Prayers in 2007.
SPOILER
While the film depicts the premiere of The Room being met with laughter and applause, the real initial screening was received poorly and many audience members walked out in the first five minutes; it took time for its cult status to develop.- In the film, Wiseau is inspired to write The Room as a vehicle for himself and Sestero; in real life it started out as a play, and Tommy was inspired after seeing The Talented Mr. Ripley.
- In June 2014 Dave Franco informally announced at a midnight showing of The Room that he had been cast as Greg Sestero; the younger Franco had sought different projects deliberately, saying "I didn't want people to think I was riding his coattails."
- According to James Franco, Wiseau had initially hoped Johnny Depp would play him.
- Judd Apatow says that James Franco tricked him into playing a version of himself as a "generic asshole producer", and that he did not initially realize it when he was being cast.
