Nineteen-year-old Greg Sestero met Tommy Wiseau at an acting school in San Francisco. Wiseau’s scenes were rivetingly wrong, yet Sestero, hypnotized by such uninhibited acting, thought, “I have to do a scene with this guy.” That impulse changed both of their lives. Wiseau seemed never to have read the rule book on interpersonal relationships (or the instructions on a bottle of black hair dye), yet he generously offered to put the aspiring actor up in his LA apartment. Sestero’s nascent acting career first sizzled, then fizzled, resulting in Wiseau’s last-second offer to Sestero of co-starring with him in The Room, a movie Wiseau wrote and planned to finance, produce, and direct—in the parking lot of a Hollywood equipment-rental shop.
Wiseau spent $6 million of his own money on his film, but despite the efforts of the disbelieving (and frequently fired) crew and embarrassed (and frequently fired) actors, the movie made no sense. Nevertheless, Wiseau rented a Hollywood billboard featuring his alarming headshot and staged a red carpet premiere. The Room made $1,800 at the box office and closed after two weeks. One reviewer said that watching The Room was like “getting stabbed in the head”.
The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero’s laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make “the Citizen Kane of bad movies” (Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon, with Wiseau himself beloved as an oddball celebrity. Written with award-winning journalist Tom Bissell, The Disaster Artist is an inspiring tour de force that reads like a page-turning novel, an open-hearted portrait of an enigmatic man who will improbably capture your heart.
Powerful and Brutally Honest – Not What I Expected As a huge fan of “The Room,” I went into this book expecting to hear a first-hand account of the wackiness that must have occurred while filming and maybe a little inside info on Tommy Wiseau. I would have been perfectly happy if the book had been that simple, but it was that plus so much more. In a way, Greg Sestero has created the moving, raw, true-to-life biography that “The Room” was supposed to be. This isn’t a funny book about a hilariously bad movie… It’s a sad book about a deeply…
I’m so glad Mark didn’t leave his stupid comments in his pocket Greg Sestero has done something fantastic. He’s managed to perfectly pinpoint all of Tommy Wiseau’s eccentricities and show us exactly why we should care about him. Our dear Sestosterone is not only talented at growing beards and playing football, he’s also a great and engaging writer. As a longtime fan of The Room, I really enjoyed the way Greg switched between talking about his early years with Tommy and the actual drama happening on the set of The Room. Each anecdote is better than the…