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There is this outstanding, revealing interview by Steve Heisler on the A/V Club today with The Room director Tommy Wiseau. It’s long, but totally worth it — everyone who has seen The Room should read it (at least three times). There are too many quotable quotes to possibly namecheck them all, but here are a few:
On Why Denny Acts So Weird:
AVC: What do you think Philip Haldiman brought to the role of Denny?
TW: I think he brought a lot stuff. One thing was people actually, he’s really retarded a little bit.
On Privacy:
AVC: How do you relax?
TW: That’s personal question, actually.
On People Calling The Room “So bad it’s good”:
“I’m not, like, some people say, “They don’t laugh with Tommy, Tommy not laugh with them,” or something like that; no, on the contrary. I enjoy very much, and I wish I could attend all the screening in the world, it’s impossible. You see, it’s contradicting. I don’t like to use this phrase, but they come out, I think, because of the Internet, they come out with this statement. For me, it’s very difficult to understand.
On Critics:
The person who wrote the article about it for Variety did not see the movie.
The interview also reveals that Tommy’s next movie is about vampires and basketball and STRONGLY suggests that the sex in The Room was real. Also, Tommy doesn’t think women should be allowed to be firemen. Just read the thing, if there’s any justice in the world it’ll win some kind of journalism award.
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“I always wanted to work with a TV.”
Tommy is the real thing, like Ed Wood — a visionary, period.
He really does believe this is his epic poem for humanity. Awesome.
Also, I need to read the novel.
The sex was real? Including that hot session with Lisa’s red dress?
You are tearing me apart, Lindsay.
Okay, having read this interview in full I can say that this does nothing to dispel my personal conception of Tommy Wiseau as either (A) a confused but well-meaning crash-landed alien or (B) a confused but well-meaning Frankenstein monster who only recently thawed and began filming movies with great passion. Or the less-charitable but undeniable possibility that (C) he is actually a little bit retarded.
But I like to believe (A)
“Look at James Dean movies and look at The Room, some of the characters.” Yup.
For anyone in the Chicago Area, this is screening at the Music Box, on the 26th, i think. I dunno, go check out the music box website, it’s one of their midnight screenings.
awwwwwww snap!
“Is extremely difficult to do. We all have a shortcut. As you know, we use the two cameras, so we need two crews. And you have no shortcut.”
Keep in mind that I have only 99 minutes to present all the obstacle life. And I think we did.
Hey, so if it’s not too shameless I’m gonna link to my own interview with Mr. Wiseau if you guys are interested. He describes his productivity method and hilariously takes offense to one of my questions… I dunno, I’m pretty proud of it. Videogum’s the only reason I knew about The Room in the first place so I hope you guys like it.
“I?m not saying because you are Steve, I?m saying because it?s true.”
“suddenly, we have a sense of smell, but we have a sense also of intuition.”
Thank you for bringing The Room to my attention, Lindsay.
“when Denny says, ?I like to watch,? look at kids today. I have nephews myself. And I say, what are you doing here? ?Oh yeah, I just want to watch.? In a very innocent way.”
Thaz right. Uncle Wiseau’ll letcha watch.
“Good statement, Steve. I do like cheesecake”
I might be reading Tommy wrong (imagine that), but just for the record: I grew up with Phil Haldiman (Denny), and he is most certainly not retarded. In fact, he was a 4.0 kid who won all the spelling bees. If it isn’t obvious from that endorsement, we were friends until like 7th grade which is when he moved away. I’m pretty sure he didn’t contract mental retardation in his later years, either.