-Congratulations. This film nominated
for a Golden Globe yesterday. -Yeah.
-Congratulations on that. -Thank you.
-And for those who don't know, this is based on the making of an actual film
called "The Room." -Yeah, there's a movie
called "The Room," not "Room" with Brie Larson
which is a great movie. -Yeah, exactly.
-And Jacob Tremblay is darling and emotionally
available. [ Laughter ] But this is a movie
called "The Room." with Tommy Wiseau,
who James Franco plays. He wrote it, directed it,
stars in it, produced it, financed it himself,
marketed it himself. And it is known for being one
of the worst movies of all-time. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ] -And it's so bad,
that it actually developed, like, a cult following. And people, like me,
started seeing it. with their friends
and telling people to see it, And it became kind of like
Rocky Horror Picture Show-esque experience
where it was kind of interactive with the
audience and they would participate in kind of just
the glory of how absolutely, ridiculously terrible it is to the point that people started
liking it, though. And honestly, like,
I watched it so many times, I kind of love it, and we made
a whole movie about it. And there is something great
about it. And because
you keep watching it. Like, and if it was bad,
you were like, "Why am I watching this over
and over again? Why have I seen this more than
I've seen, like, good movies?" -Yeah.
-Like -- and so, yeah. It's endlessly fascinating
subject. -Who introduced it to you?
It came out in 2003. Did you see it pretty early on,
do you think? -Yeah, I saw it about a year and
a half maybe after it came out. Paul Rudd I think was the first
one who mentioned it to me, and he had seen it. And then I went and saw it with my wife,
who I was dating at the time and Jonah Hill
and Ed Helms actually... -Seth: Wow.
-At the Sunset Laemmle Five. And it was mostly empty. And there was just kind
of people starting to interact with it, but it's catastrophically,
bizarrely bad. [ Laughter ]
-I -- so I knew about the movie. I hadn't seen it,
but I used to -- when I would visit L.A.,
would you see this billboard. And this billboard
was up for a while. -Years, years, and that's
the marketing I was referring to.
Tommy paid to keep that up. It had a Website --
theroommovie.com There was a phone number
and you would call it, and you didn't need to,
because you could just go to the theater and buy tickets. And the phone number
was just Tommy's phone number and he would just answer
the phone and just say, like, "Are you coming to movie?" And you would be like, "Yeah.
I'm coming to the movie." And he would be like,
"Great, see you there." And that was the entirety
of the interaction. And there was also --
he ran TV commercials really late at night
that I had seen a few of. And I asked him about it,
and he said, "They were on so late at night,
they were free." [ Laughter ] -like, it was literally
at a time when there was just
nothing else. So they let him put his
ridiculous ads up for his movie. Yeah.
-It's fantastic. You were a producer on the film
from the start. -Yeah.
-And -- but then you decide
to play a part. We saw the part you were playing
there in the clip. How did you decide
to play that character? -Oh, he was like the only guy
around my age, I think. -Okay.
-[ Laughs ] But --
-You're making producing sound very easy.
-Well, yeah. And I played Sandy Schklair,
is his name and he was a script
supervisor of "The Room," and kind of, sort of directed it
a little bit. As you can see,
he kind of like calls action and helps with the lines. And he later claimed
he directed the movie, which shows
what a weird thing it is, because it's a bad movie.
-Yeah. -So this guy is taking
credit for it. Like, we're suing,
hoarding the credit for creating something that is
only famous because it's bad. It's so weird.
It's a very weird thing, yeah. -Does -- do you think Tommy,
looking back, is happy? Obviously, this film
has succeeded to a place where it's being adapted
by all these great actors and writers and directors.
-Yeah. -But it was not what he
set out to make. -No, and that is like
an interesting moment to me -- Is like he did have to kind
of readjust what his goal was. He had to pretend his goal
was to make a ridiculous comedy, whereas his goal was really
to make like a heartfelt drama. [ Laughter ]
But he -- but he -- but he -- but his goal was also
to become a famous movie star, which he kind of is now
in some way and a famous filmmaker --
which he kind of is now in some way. Like, I mean, we had a -- James Franco plays him
in the movie. He wanted Johnny Depp,
but we got James Franco. [ Laughter ] But, yeah. But what's weird is like
he seems -- I was just looking at him
at the premier, and it was a big premier and like a lot of famous people
were there. A lot of famous people
were at the movie, And he is behaving in such a way as though he always
expected it to happen. And, like, I was saying --
my only other experience is I played Steve Wozniak
in a movie, and like,
that guy invented computers and he was blown away we were
making a movie about him. Like, he couldn't believe it. This guy made
the worst movie of all-time and it's as though not only
was he expecting a movie to be made about him,
he's a little pissed it wasn't five
years ago, basically. -Yeah
[ Laughter ] -And that Johnny Depp
isn't playing him, and instead James Franco is. He's a weird dude.
-You -- you saw him before
even you began to talk about
adapting the story. You would see him
in L.A. You saw him at grocery stores? I'-d see him at whole foods. Me and Jonah, actually,
would shop at the same whole foods and he first
saw him there and sent me a picture of him
like in front of, like, in front of cantaloupes
with Tommy. [ Laughter ] And I was like, "Oh, my God." I knew I was like --
and I would keep my eye out -- open for him,
and then I saw him one time and I took a picture with him. And -- and then years later
when we were making a movie, He like instantly,
"You take picture with me one time at grocery store. [ Laughter ] You big fan of mine.
You real big fan of mine. You like me."
"Yeah, Tommy."
