Sestero is satisfied with James Franco’s take on his ‘The Disaster Artist’
Greg Sestero is doing what he never thought he would do again after he helped make the best terrible movie ever made: He’s making another movie with Tommy Wiseau, the wildly misdirected director of the 2003 film “The Room.”
“If ‘The Room’ was called the worst movie ever made, this will be called the weirdest ever made,” said Sestero, who grew up in Alamo and graduated from Monte Vista High School in 1996.
“Best F(r)iends,” which Sestero wrote, is a “noir” about “two guys who encounter each other outside the entertainment industry.” Sestero, who moved to Hollywood with Wiseau after the two met in an acting class in San Francisco, has made a career out of his role in “The Room.”
In addition to making regular appearances at the midnight screenings of “The Room” around the country, he wrote the 2013 book “The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside the Room,” which not only got strong reviews but caught the eye of James Franco.
“The Disaster Artist,” which debuted Sunday at Austin’s South by Southwest film festival, where it received a standing ovation and rave reviews, has all kinds of Bay Area connections, starting with Palo Alto High grads James and Dave Franco.
Directed by James Franco, who also plays Wiseau, it also stars Dave Franco as Sestero, and its credits include such stars as Zoey Deutch, Seth Rogen, Sharon Stone, Bryan Cranston, Kristin Bell, Zac Efron and Melanie Griffith, among others — all fans of “The Room.”
Sestero, who was at the Austin premiere, had nothing but good things to say about Franco’s film.
“I was surprised they did such a good job and were so honest with the story,” said Sestero, by phone from Los Angeles, where he now lives. “The ending is really strong, the cast was strong. It wasn’t just cameos.”
The film doesn’t have a release date yet, and Sestero says it still needs some “tweaking.” But Warner Bros. is behind it, and it will be widely released.
Some backstory if you haven’t heard of “The Room.” Wiseau — who speaks with a vaguely Eastern European accent and doesn’t discuss his past — wrote, directed and starred in the bizarre, twisted soap opera of a story set and partially filmed in San Francisco. He also managed to finance the film, though the source of his funding remains a mystery. His overacting makes James Dean seem subtle. The movie was so weird — and, yes, bad — that it became a midnight favorite at various theaters around the country. People like Franco, Rogen and Bell championed it.
But it for many, it was more than ironic love — some people developed a serious fondness for this misguided, overly dramatic romp that is now considered a dramatic comedy.
“It’s become it’s own thing,” says Sestero, whose friendship with Wiseau is the subplot of his book, which he co-wrote with journalist Tom Bissell. “It’s a popular phrase to say it’s the best bad movie. But, at the end of the day, are you entertained? It’s a fascinating movie. It gets laughs every scene. Maybe I have great talent for comedy I don’t know about.”
Sestero spent plenty of time on the set of “The Disaster Artist,” interacting with people like Franco, Cranston and Stone, which he admits was “surreal.”
“I offered whatever they asked for,” he says. “They had really great screenwriting. I got to sit back and enjoy what they were doing.” Of the movie stars he met, he says: “They weren’t just there. They were really contributing.”
Meeting the mysterious Wiseau — with whom he watched the screening in Austin — and being talked into accepting a role in “The Room” turned out to be a windfall for Sestero. Not only did the former model become an indelible part of American pop culture, he co-authored an awardwinning book (best non-fiction at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards in 2014), extended his acting career (check out his work with Patton Oswalt in “Dude Bro Party Massacre III”) and is now writing his own films.
“It keeps going, and you never look back,” he says, “because it just keeps going.”