-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."