Five questions with Greg Sestero from the Room

If you haven’t watched this movie, Watch it, and then get to the interview.

The all-time greatest movie experience is going to see the Room. This film is truly a conundrum and it’s scenes will stay with you even after you leave the theater. The first time I watched the film was the Rifftrax version and while it was funny, nothing can beat the actual film itself in a theater of people who are excited to see it. During my first theater experience, there were no props and no one was dressed up, but a group of guys knew all of the words to the film’s original score and they sang along during the passionate (see: gratuitous) sex scenes.

I think about the Room a lot. I quote the Room daily, and I was astonished that one of the stars of the film, Greg Sestero (Mark) agreed to sit down for an interview about the film. It was a really cool experience and I can’t thank him enough for it. So, for your enjoyment, here is my interview with Greg Sestero.

1) What do you think of the character Mark? How did you prepare for your scenes?

Well, the character of Mark is really kind of the opposite of Tommy’s character. And I think Tommy envisioned me in that role as the all-American blonde guy, and the opposite of Wiseau. I didn’t really get to prepare much for the role because truthfully, I met Tommy in an acting class a couple of years before and he needed someone to play Mark, and it was ironic because I had a beard at the time.

I think Mark is a good hearted “best friend” if you can call him that. I just wanted to play the character the way Tommy wrote him because I felt that was the best choice for the film and really, all the characters kind of talk alike and they always seem to go back to those same talking points.

2) Many people speculate on the possibility of the movie being biographical for Tommy, any thoughts on this?

I don’t really know the specifics, but it’s pretty clear that he had a Lisa, and a Denny, and a Mark in his life. I think a lot of stuff is definitely something he went through at some point. and I think a lot of stuff He able to relieve himself of with this movie.

3) So how is your sex life?

Um . . . not bad. The Room hasn’t killed it too much.

I only ask because of the scene where you and Tommy are in the coffee shop and you ask him about working at the bank and he replies something like, “I can’t talk about that. So, anyway Mark, how is your sex life?”

Yeah, it’s a bizarre scene because why would that conversation ever go like that? I probably just should have turned it around on him and said, “Man, you know that I can’t talk about that.”

There’s no structure to that conversation. It’s like it can go haywire at any moment.

4) In your interview with the Onion A.V. club, you referred to as “good films have plants, and they have payoff. Here, you have a garden full of plants… and no payoff. It’s an interesting way of manipulating an audience.” With this in mind, how would you classify this movie?

Well, it’s like in my favorite movie, Back to the Future, everything in that movie comes back and has a purpose and it comes back even if it ends up in the sequels.

And with the Room, you have Denny and he wants to be around them, but they want to be alone and you think there is a relationship there, but there’s not. Then, there is drugs on the roof and you think is going to pay off and then there is breast cancer plays a part of the story – all of these things you’d think will pay off in the story, but they don’t. And Tommy himself is a very mysterious character and therefore, the Room is a very mysterious movie because you are tricked at every point in the film. Why is this here? Why is there breast cancer and the daughter could care less? Why is there is a psychologist and then he’s replaced by another friend at the end of the film? I think it’s just one big mysterious movie that you can’t figure out.

At the same time, people say it’s the “worst movie” or that it’s the “best worst movie”  and either way, movies just aren’t made like that because movies are made with a structure and the movie was made in Tommy Wiseau’s world and none of us live there.

If you want a movie to put on and just laugh and have a great time because if you try to figure it out, you’ll just drive yourself nuts.

5) How would you compare Tommy’s directing style to others you have worked with?

Tommy is the most fun director I have ever worked with because he is such an enigma and such a character that there’s no sanity to it. He’s just completely out there. Movie-making is supposed to be fun and he makes it fun. Working on the room,  everyday I’d go on set and I was so excited because I wondered “what’s he going to do? What will he do to make me laugh my head off?” It’s like going to a comedy club and there just isn’t an experience like that. Working on movies, some people take things very seriously and with Tommy, he just wanted to make it fun.

Thanks so much for doing this interview

Thank you and I also wanted to mention that I’ve been approached by a publisher to do a book about my experience with the Room and Tommy and if you or your readers have any questions that you’d like answered by the book, just let me know.

You heard the man! If you have any questions for Greg Sestero and his experience with the Room and Tommy Wiseau, just post your questions in the comments section!