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Interview: 'The Room's Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero bring new movie to Tampa, and it's serious this time

 
Greg Sestero, left, and Tommy Wiseau are together again. Their new movie "Best F(r)iends" has its Florida debut March 23 at the Gasparilla International Film Festival. They will attend. They'll also be at a screening of The Room later that night. (Getty Images)
Greg Sestero, left, and Tommy Wiseau are together again. Their new movie "Best F(r)iends" has its Florida debut March 23 at the Gasparilla International Film Festival. They will attend. They'll also be at a screening of The Room later that night. (Getty Images)
Published March 15, 2018

Tell people there's a new movie starring The Room's Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero.

Assuming they're fans of "the greatest bad movie ever made," or at least familiar with The Disaster Artist, you'll have their full attention. Then comes the inevitable question: "But, wait, are they, like, serious?"

According to both men, who spoke to the Tampa Bay Times, the short answer is "Yes, 100 percent."

Their first movie together since 2003's The Room, Best F(r)iends is a Los Angeles noir thriller with Wiseau in a lead role as Harvey, a mortician with some very odd methods. Sestero, who wrote the script, plays Jon, a homeless drifter covered in blood. Harvey takes him in before embarking on a moneymaking scheme involving leftover scrap from Harvey's business.

The movie gets its Florida premiere March 23 at the Gasparilla International Film Festival in Tampa, and Wiseau and Sestero will be there. Later that night, the two will attend a Tampa screening of The Room. Best F(r)iends gets a limited release in theaters across the U.S. a week later.

Highlights: What to see and do at the Gasparilla International Film Festival

The Room is a melodrama about a love triangle that Wiseau wrote, directed, starred in and funded for $6 million, with Sestero as his co-star. He didn't mean for it to be a comedy, but people found it funny anyway. It gained cult status at late-night screenings around the country, with Rocky Horror-like audience participation.

It also made Wiseau an unlikely star. Wiseau, who has a thick European accent and says "ha ha ha" instead of laughing, is secretive about his age, country of origin and personal life.

Sestero's book The Disaster Artist, about the making of The Room, their complicated friendship and Wiseau's relentless, if misguided, passion, became a funny but emotionally poignant 2017 movie starring James Franco and Dave Franco. If there was ever a moment when people might be thinking about Wiseau and Sestero as more than simply participants in an epically bad movie, it's now.

People keep asking: Is Best F(r)iends a comedy, or is it bad on purpose, or is it trying to be taken seriously?

Sestero: It's completely serious. I would never have been on board if it wasn't trying to break new ground, or be totally different from The Room. The Room has never interested me as a film. The reaction interested me. And that reaction was only because of how genuine and how hard Tommy worked trying to make it the next A Streetcar Named Desire. If we made something else, and didn't approach it that way, we wouldn't be fulfilled and the audience wouldn't be fulfilled.

What was the vibe on set like this time?

Sestero: I never expected to work with Tommy again. It's a lot of process, it's a lot of effort, it's very tiring, but I was passionate about giving Tommy a chance to succeed as an actor. Nobody wanted to cast him or rep him when he came to Hollywood, so he made The Room himself to try to fit in as a leading man. But he's unique, and he needed to be put in a position where his uniqueness helps him. In this role he has that, and can act in a way that tells the story but doesn't make him the joke. He took direction very well. ... When I wrote this, I was thinking of movies like Nightcrawler and Drive and Double Indemnity.

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You voice parts of the award-winning Disaster Artist audiobook as Tommy. Could you have done it better than James Franco?

Sestero: I think James was pretty amazing as Tommy. He brought to life a different side I really enjoyed. Of course, I can speak just like Tommy at this point.

Tommy, what were you going to say at the Golden Globes if Franco would have given you the mic when you reached for it?

Wiseau: A simple thing: "American dream is alive. I am American and I am very proud. See The Room. Have fun."
Ha ha ha. That was off the wall.

You must have had other movie ideas for you and Greg to work on over the last 15 years, right?

Wiseau: I've been working on another movie with Greg, a horror movie. I will tell you subliminally, it's about a person — I don't want to give it away, because you're smart, you figure it out, but let me give you this synopsis that will be subliminal. It's about a person, a doctor who tries to change the world dealing with human behavior, how to be good, and how to be bad. It's not a vampire movie, let me stress that. Besides the project I just mentioned I also have Vampires From Alcatraz. The script is done.

People were campaigning to get you invited to the Oscars. Were you sad you couldn't go?

Wiseau: I was disappointed, but I'm not an angry person. Someday I'll be at the Oscars with my new project. I believe in it. I did go to Oscars after-parties, and I see people are very nice and sincere at these parties. I will not drop the name, but I saw the real Oscar right in front of me. Because of Disaster Artist people are thinking about The Room much differently in the last two years than they did before. We are a small community, Hollywood, and to get respect sometimes takes time. You have to be patient.

What should people know about Best F(r)iends?

Wiseau: It's real. It's not CGI. It's just a real story about a person in business with dead people. It was a lot of prep and studying this character Harvey. I was in a real morgue learning. In fact, some of the set was a real morgue and they actually delivered a real body. They were still doing real services there. Imagine right now after the interview you go to morgue and see the real person who's dead. It's eerie. But this is not The Room 2. It is totally opposite from The Room.

What do you love about your friend Greg?

Wiseau: You know he lives far away, 50 miles away, no, 30 miles, but when we work together he is my fellow filmmaker. I know how difficult it is to make any project, at the end of the day he has commitment and passion. It's not easy. The friendship is based on respect and understanding. Sometimes we argue but we've been friends for 20 years. I know his parents, his girlfriend. I think we'll stay friends forever.

IF YOU GO

The Room: Pass holders and festival attendees are invited to a screening of the 2003 film at the Attic, 1510 E Eighth Ave., in Ybor City, at 11 p.m. March 23. Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero will be there. Space is limited. Festival, weekend or single-day pass holders get priority, followed by anyone with a ticket stub from another festival event.

Best F(r)iends will screen at 9 p.m. on March 23 at the AMC Classic Centro Ybor 10, 1600 E 8th Ave. Tickets at gasparillafilmfestival.com.

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