Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Oh yeah, we had a regular premiere before.

First we had a premiere, and then we released the movie for two weeks. We actually had pictures of this on the web for many months. But we had a premiere with the media, all the actors showed up. We had over two-hundred, three-hundred people or whatever. It was a full house. And it was very exciting.

No, the answer is no. Because I designed The Room for American people. And as you probably noticed, The Room, right now, is playing all over the world, including, for example, the UK, Canada, Australia, and we’re also releasing it in other countries as well. It seems to me it’s the same thing that happened in America, that the people want to see the movie several times, and I always encourage that, because of symbolism within The Room.

So, to respond to your question, no. But at the same time, by design, you see, we had a billboard for many years, and the public wanted to see The Room after the two week screening for the Academy Awards. We got hundreds of emails and demands to see The Room. Long story short, there was trouble because of the fire marshal in one of the screenings. And then I decided, I said, you know what, the best way to screen it is at midnight. And it has nothing to do with other movies, or cult classics—whatever people called others prior to The Room. Because I thought this would be the best time, as long as people get out late, or whatever. I said, you know what, let’s just try midnight, and history was made. Now you know!

Yeah. Because, you see, after the two-week screening, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the rules for the Academy Awards but— some of the people who are blogging about The Room, writing articles and all that stuff, the stuff is misleading. But yes, before you submit to the Academy, you have to screen it in a theater at least for two weeks, and that’s what we did. And after the screening, I said, Well, you know, we’ll not continue. Let’s just release the DVD. But we couldn’t release the DVD for a period of time. When you submit a film to the Academy Awards, you have to wait, you have to release the DVD after [the eligibility period] is over. Because they have to review it, et cetera. That’s one of the rules.

So, we received many emails. And people were actually camping out outside the theater to see The Room. So I said, you know what, let’s go have a screening at the Wilshire Screening Room in Los Angeles. And so many people showed up, we got in trouble, because people were literally sitting on the floor. The theater people told me, no, you cannot have this, because there were so many people, we have a problem with the fire marshal now.

So we went back to the theater, and we had a regular screening at midnight. That’s the history of The Room. [laughter]

The Room, by design, is from the real world, from real life. Originally, it was supposed to be a play, then I changed my mind. And I said, Let me adjust it for the film format, because the number of people who go to the theater is less than the number who go to the cinema.

So then I did the research. I’ve done so much research; my background’s acting and also psychology. So, to respond to your question, I think that people connect because it’s the real world. And, you know, we are very simple people when you really think about it. You may use fancy words, you may be a graduate from Stanford University or Berkeley, whatever, but it doesn’t mean that you connect with people, you know?

So there’s a lot of symbolism within The Room. From the beginning, it’s no secret that I’ve encouraged people to actually see it several times. You see, sometimes a certain group of media, they don’t give the creative process a chance, or they don’t give enough credit—but never mind about that. We all connect to The Room directly and indirectly, when you really think about it, if you’re honest with yourself.

And again, my take is also that I don’t expect everybody to love The Room, but I’m pretty sure that people will find at least an element, a sentence or word, or whatever else within The Room that connects with their life directly or indirectly.

Yes, I have an over 500-page book that I want to publish, actually. And I’m working currently with someone to publish this. But publishing these days is very difficult. I don’t want to put these 500 pages on the web, I want to have a hard copy format. But it’s supposed to be a play, you know? I did everything backwards: I wrote the script based on a novel, correct.

We had a process of casting, and, again, people don’t understand that. I don’t know how many reviews you’ve read, but we had regular casting. We got over 6,000 head shots to choose from.

To respond to your question, any actor’s job is to give something from, in this case, I believe, realism, because The Room is not melodrama, it’s not fantasy. It’s true stuff from a life. There are hardly any special effects, except Johnny’s suicide, but besides this scene, everything is real when you really think about it. You can apply it to the real world, and you can interact.

You see, the actors are always looking for colors from directors, they always say, “What colors can you give me?” And this is my background of acting experience. Some of the actors, to be honest with you, they tried to tamper with my project. Same with the crew. Some of the people I let go, some of them I replaced, some of them got fired, et cetera, et cetera.

You see, I already had a vision prior to shooting: I knew exactly what I wanted. So I did not accept any kind of tampering from any one, but certain suggestions are always welcome. For example, I never approached a big studio – I did all this research, that’s a fact – and I knew that the studio would not even consider producing because we were not on the same page. However, I did submit it for distribution. They saw the movie after it was completed in 35mm. They said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Wiseau.” And I said, “Thank you very much, too.” That was one of the big studios, it starts with a “P,” and I will not drop the name, it was only one, and you can probably figure it out.

But to respond to your question, yeah, it’s very important, the director’s job as well as the actors’. They have to work closely together. And I believe in the rehearsal process. I don’t want to shoot the actors talking to a wall, I want them to talk to actors. Today, in the industry, people hire actors, they want them to talk to a wall or a green screen. I am against that. My approach is, I want a physical person.

Absolutely! I have a great interest. But you’ve got to understand, what you mention is not something new. We’ve had 3-D movies from way, way before, I don’t know if you realize that.

You see, you’ve got to be open-minded. Again, I used two cameras on The Room on purpose, not just because I said so. First of all, at the time, seven years ago, we did not have enough information about HD. But then everything turned around, and we concluded that HD is better than 35 in certain situations. But at the same time, 35 will never die. Film is film and we cannot change that. You may be very close with the picture colors, which we are.

And you’re right, technology changes. 3-D is now bigger than ever. I may shoot [in 3-D] myself in certain projects. But this is also related to cost. And there are a lot of different aspects you have to consider before you actually decide to do that. Some people can afford it, some people cannot. And you have to hire a lot of people because you cannot do it by yourself unless you can be Superman. I can do a lot of stuff myself, you see, but certain limitations you have.

One of the things in the industry right now is that you do have a lot of choices. You can make a good movie that’s relatively inexpensive, but at the same time you can ask yourself how far you can go with a budget. People don’t realize how much money… Imagine feeding 300 people on the set. Imagine what the cost is, just to feed people. And there’s no shortcut, because we have to consume, otherwise we don’t have the energy, you know? The people writing about The Room, they compare it to a movie that was made for ten thousand dollars. And I’m just laughing, to be honest with you, because it’s laughable, it’s nonsense. You can see that the quality of the 35mm is there, the colors are there. Yes, certain stuff was dubbed intentionally, to provoke the audience. But this is my choice, you see.

This has nothing to do with you, it’s how I am. I’m very approachable. I’m not an evil person, if people think that, which probably you’ve heard about.

I like people to enjoy themselves, that’s the bottom line. If people have a positive reaction, well, I think that’s a compliment. That’s how I am. Even a negative can be also positive. It’s not wrong to criticize someone, if it’s your sincere way, not just making assumptions. I’ll give you an example: Some person in Variety wrote an article about The Room, and I’m very convinced that, in this case, he did not see The Room. There’s no way in the world he saw The Room. You see, I’m talking to you, you’re interviewing me, we interact—it will be your choice, your approach. This will be based not on your assumptions but your choices. I don’t know how many times you’ve seen The Room, you mentioned you’re a fan…

Great, I appreciate that, but at the same time, you see, people don’t understand that this is entertainment. I will say very strongly that we want people to have a groovy time. All right, let’s move on. Next question!

No problem!

You know what, if I had been in front of you, I would hug you.

Yes. That’s right on the money. My spin on psychology is that it’s a very gray area. And it all depends on what tactic you are talking about. Now let’s talk about the character of Peter. See, Peter, when I cast him, he had something which was unique at the time, and still is valid. Because you have many psychologists who say, I’m a shrink, or whatever, but they don’t give you what actually… Let’s put it this way: they can give you what you want to hear, but based on the facts, they cannot improve your life. And then you do have a problem.

Now, in The Room, this is a perfect example: that [Peter] tries to reach Johnny, but he doesn’t know how. If you look at Johnny and Lisa, you see Peter already knows what’s going on with Mark. He should jump on the wagon – you know, the American expression – and help Johnny to save and to give the message to Lisa. But then after the football accident, we don’t see him anymore, he disappears. That was partially my choice, as you know, and some of the staff, we had some dilemmas with him. But I think overall he did a good job because that’s exactly what I wanted him to be.

But this is a great, great question. It’s a nice statement from you, because there’s so many different stuff we can do with it, from one topic to the other, and you will connect directly or indirectly to The Room, which media, sometimes, they don’t understand that. And I understand media—90% of media in America, they want to be actors, they want to be celebrities, whatever they want to be.

People don’t realize, today’s society compared to a hundred years ago, it’s not different. Except we have different technology, which we’ve already been talking about. But human behavior did not change so much, if you think about it. Yes, we discovered ourselves within ourselves, based on example, some people influence us. But eventually we all have our own choices.

And eventually, we just say, “Well, this is ethical,” or, “This is not ethical.” What’s the value behind it? Two’s better than three, or three’s a crowd— is it okay for Denny to love Lisa? Yes, it’s okay. There’s nothing wrong for somebody to say to somebody else that you love their boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever. Our society says that it’s not right to say that, and I say, no, that’s completely wrong. Because if a lot of people love each other, the world would be a better place to live. [Laughter]

Well you see, you have to look at the definition of love. For Mark to love Lisa, that’s OK, too, but not having sex and getting irritated and upset. You have to understand that Lisa manipulates Johnny and Mark. Lisa doesn’t want to be with Johnny. Johnny’s character is a little older, superior, already, if you really think about it, because of his money. And Claudette, Lisa’s mother, says, “Wait a minute, you have all this security, what else do you want from life?” Lisa says, “Yes, I can have the security, but I want more.” If you really think about it, this greed, we humans we all have that. We want 100% before we have 20%. It’s not only relationships—it’s money, power. Look at politicians today. I rest my case.

But again, Mark could love Lisa, but not have sex with her—it’s love as a physical thing, not love as words. Behind the word “love” there are many different obstacles. Do you have to respect me if you love me? Is it okay for Denny to love Lisa? The answer is yes. Does it have to be physical? You see, the society where we live, we always have a tendency to say that this has to be physical, and I say no, it should not be physical. Because, you see, you can love someone without doing the sex.

The definition of love is varied, and we forget about this. And I think that’s one of the aspects that people discover that love is not just who you love but you can love. Look at people who have children they love—do they have to do sex, the parents with their kids? For your information, sometimes they do, which I disagree with. Look at the Catholic church, the scandals we have all over the world right now.

Well, you see, there’s the difference between women-girls—and men-guys. My take on Lisa is that she’s going overboard and she doesn’t have to. But she decided to be in charge. And it’s like a castle: you build a certain castle, and the irony of the story is, your castle will go to ashes. It will burn down. She does not build a strong house, you see, and that’s the red flag for all the ladies there, that you may build your castle, and you think you’re in charge and everything will be under control. But vice versa, for guys, it could be the same thing. You can apply the same formula to guys. Keep in mind the guys are not innocent either.

But in this case, though, Lisa is a perfect example. She thinks that she is in control. Even visually, she says it to Michelle—says, you know, I can twist Johnny around my finger, everything’s under control, and I know what I’m doing. But she doesn’t understand that she will lose all, and actually she is losing all. Because at the end, as you notice, that Mark says to Lisa, “I don’t need you anymore, get out of my house.” But actually that’s her house, because Mark is confused—again, people don’t pick up on this, but eventually somebody will ask the question.

So the thing is that manipulation is there. But another aspect of Lisa is that in today’s society – by the way, this is my take – is that ladies, they have more control than guys, if you ask me. By my research, I will debate anybody. I don’t say it because you are a lady. But the fact is that ladies, they have more brains. But I say, you guys – you as the lady, you as the girl – sometimes they don’t know how to use their own power, within the power of their nature, you see. Look at Cleopatra, for example, it’s a perfect example. And look at Elizabeth Taylor.

You see, I don’t know if you’ve heard about responsibility. And it’s not just because I say so, because somebody said this a hundred years ago. You know what? That’s how it is. You see, if you are responsible, I think—I personally think that ladies can be much more successful than guys. It’s not just because I say so. It’s not just because I say, “Okay, I have to be very nice for Miss Megan, or Mrs. Megan.” No. I’ve said this openly many times. But you have to understand at the same time that ladies can be very manipulative. Because we guys, we are weak sometimes.

But at the same time, to respond to your question, a lot of ladies, they do not know how to use their power. Because they think that they have to put on a hundred powders, or they have to look great, or they have to do exercise—which, there’s nothing wrong with that either. But at the same time, a lot of girls, they don’t know how to use it, if you ask me.

I don’t know what’s happened the past few years. I don’t know, it’s some kind of epidemic of girls we have watching The Room, don’t ask me why. But the fact is, I always say, innocence will give you more power than no innocence. And that’s what also relates to Lisa. Lisa tried to act as the innocent. Her character is very manipulative. But she offers something, because she was the understudy, and I laid off some of the other Lisas, and some of the girls cannot give me what I want.

The girls think if they put jeans on, they’ll be acting like guys, they’ll be macho men, they’ll be firemen—but no, that’s not how life is, I’m sorry to tell you. Because [women] have something unique, something that you cannot replace because of a materialistic thing like wearing jeans, or being a fireman. Yes, good for you, great, do it—you have energy, you pass the test, that’s what you want to be, it’s great, I love it. But at the same time, you don’t understand what you’re missing. You don’t understand that if you put on a dress, it actually looks better than jeans. Not just because Tommy says that, because it’s part of nature, and you will be going places you’ve never been before. But no, you have to say, “I’ll wear jeans because I feel like it, society’s changed, I have it better than anybody.” I’m just giving you an example, you see.

You look at glamour in Hollywood. You know, hardly any girls, from big stars to small stars, wear jeans at premieres. Do you think this is just by accident? No.

But at the same time, if you interview any girls, any big stars, just ask them: what do they think about jeans and a dress, or a nice beautiful outfit which is completely off the wall? You see, again this is the thing that guys don’t understand, is that a woman has tremendous power. I think the average girl is very meticulous, very detail-oriented. It’s not just because they have to finish stuff or have a university diploma, or they have to graduate from something. No—that’s not how it works. It’s part of nature.

But sometimes they cannot discover themselves, and that’s why Lisa in The Room is extremely important, and this is the thing that’s the message behind it, the red flag. I’m talking as the director now. For all the girls, it’s a red flag, they say, “Wait a minute, I don’t want to be like Lisa. That’s not right.” So, you see, these are choices that are individual, because we have many Lisas, many Dennys, many different characters from The Room in the entire world. So, our view of the story is that it’s a process of learning.

Well, you see, let me tell you what my spin is about comedy, drama, and all these different [genres]. You have to understand, my take on any entertainment is that the more colors you have, the better. You can divide different movies into different colors, and the more colors you have, the better. Now, usually if you call it a sitcom it’s supposed to be a comedy. You see, my idea of a story is, wherever I go, I like people to enjoy themselves. That’s how I am. Don’t ask me why. It’s maybe because it’s part of my nature, I don’t know. When I first tried acting classes, people were laughing, and I enjoyed their laughing, you know. Maybe it’s just my accent, maybe appearance, maybe I do quirky stuff—whatever it is, it doesn’t bother me. Contrary, I think if people have a groovy time, I enjoy myself too. As you probably see I’m enjoying it now.

But to respond about The Neighbors, you see, I shot a 22-minute pilot. I’m working currently with the network people, but they’ve approved one episode. And I say, if you approve one episode, you have to approve ten episodes. One episode will not work—people get into characters. But The Neighbors is a totally different cookie cutter than The Room. The Room is a different cookie cutter than the average movie released from Hollywood. And people don’t realize that, until they actually do the research and they say, wait a minute, maybe he’s right. And I rest my case. As for The Neighbors, I’m still working on it, and we’ll see what happens.

Well, you know, I like drama, I like comedy, but you see, you have to adjust accordingly. You talk about Homeless in America, which I did because I wanted to discover what’s happening on the street, basically. And you know, it’s a different approach for each project. I like variety. You see, when I create something, I like to do it from scratch, too. So currently I’m working on a few different projects at the same time. And sometimes people hire me, like Tim and Eric at Cartoon Network, they hired me for certain parts, whatever. I have a couple gigs, too, this way, that way, wherever. But I like variety. That’s why I don’t like to be one person only, because of my background.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. If you see the vampire movie, you will not sleep at least for two weeks.

Well, you see, that’s a good comparison, because metaphorically you can say that. Because we all, if you look at life, we actually are sharing life – I’d use much kinder words than you are – we are all sharing life between all our friends, family members, close relationships, whatever we have. So we are borrowing something from somebody, and we are using them. Vice versa, they use us, and we are sort of in this circle of slaves, if you really think about it. And people have a tendency to forget about that.

The irony of the story is that we create directly and indirectly a better society for all the generations to come, if you really think about it. Especially, like I say, in America. I think in America, we will have a society where we don’t need the keys to our cars, we don’t need the keys for our homes, it will be a “pure society,” I call it. Actually, in my novel The Room, where I mention this to explain to Denny about it, what’s Johnny’s take about society—that in society you need to be very respectful.

But at the same time you cannot disregard humanity as a whole. We have good and evil within human nature, and we cannot change that, because that thing is there—maybe created by God, or certain superior forces. I have a certain religion, so my take is very universal, because my religion – and I will not tell you what the religion is, don’t even ask, you can probably figure it out maybe later – is that we embrace all the religions. And this is a unique approach. And this is the same, you may say, about America. You see, in America, we embrace… At least the majority of people, I would say. Of course you have rednecks, there’s no question about it. I will say it very openly. I used to live in New Orleans, Louisiana. But if you look at the big picture, I think we are going really well at a good try as human beings and as well as a civilization. We can’t be perfect, it’s up to us, the individuals as well as the group.

You know, good question. I don’t like the word “inspire.” I will say what I like. Austin, Texas is a very good place to shoot another movie, and that’s where I’m considering shooting parts of the vampire movie. And Los Angeles, you have many different—I live here now, Los Angeles. But you see, San Francisco is a very unique city, because you have a lot of diversity in a very small city. Did you ever visit San Francisco?

Yeah, you have a lot of diversity. You can actually walk from the Port of San Francisco to Cliff House. It’s a very unique city, and you have very unique people, and it’s a great history. But, you know, I travel right now. I just came back from Indiana. Even in Indiana I found very unique architecture, as well as simplicity, which is very important in movies. Sometimes I say, I don’t know if you’ve heard my statement, the simple is much more difficult to present. Simplicity is a virtue of success.

What this means, that people don’t realize, is nothing happens in life by accident. Yes, we have accidents, car accidents, yes, we have certain assumptions, yes, we have certain environments where we can create certain ambiances which will be maybe beneficial for your project or life or whatever. But we make choices. And some of the people who are blogging about The Room, it’s completely nonsense. I rest my case. Next question.

Absolutely! [Laughter] I’m surprised you asked. You didn’t know that? I was within 10,000!

It was in the Examiner. I don’t know if you know, but they have these rules. One of the rules is, if you’re within 10,000, they publish you in the magazine.

So, I was actually competing with one of my friends, and I don’t mention the name, but you probably know him. And he didn’t win, and I did win. [Laughter]

Absolutely. You see, at first, we didn’t have plastic spoons in the world. But we used to, a long time ago – not even a long time ago – we had wood spoons. You see, plastic also represents the technology, but at the same time also created something that we don’t like, because plastic is not nature. But it can be part of nature, if we find a formula, how to create the plastic without chemicals, which I think we may do someday. Because now we have technology – I don’t know if you know about it, but I do know about it – that looks like plastic but it’s not plastic.

And again, you have many symbols within them. And I used to live in New Orleans, so when we had a party in New Orleans, you know, a typical party, you use plastic utensils. We don’t have time to clean up, are you kidding me? If you go to a huge party, they wouldn’t think twice about it, but you see again, there’s a lot of symbolism. It’s a good question. And people picked up on the spoon, and you know the rest.

You know, like I say, I want people to have a groovy time, and be a better person for it, for whatever relationships they have. And, basically, see the movie several times. Because I will say again what I’ve said before: there’s no way a person can adjust [to] this in one day or just watching it one time. It’s not just because I say no because I’m a simple guy, but I’m just telling you that there’s a lot of symbolism there. Simple symbolism, we humans, we are so busy we forget. And live in the theater is much better than seeing it on DVD. But you know, a lot of people buy the DVD and they’ve already seen it in the theater, and then they go home… So it doesn’t matter where you see it.

But the TV is different than the theater environment. The theatre environment gives you this slightly voluntary thing, you make the effort. But who knows, maybe you can meet somebody! You know, you never know what will happen. Especially with The Room, let me tell you. I’ve discovered that people have so many relationships. People send me emails like, “oh, I met this person, thank you very much.” And I’m very fond of the fans, and the future fans. Right now we are all over, as you know. We are releasing in other countries as well. You see, originally The Room was designed only for American people, not for the UK, you know. But now I notice that other countries, actually, like it too. So this has shocked me sometimes, to be honest with you.

I will promote The Room for the rest of my life, because I want people to see it. Each American should see it. Of course, it’s R-rated, it’s not for kids. But I will be working on something for kids based on the characters in The Room, sort of a cartoon version. Also we may do a 3-D version of The Room. We’ll see. But all this different stuff I’ll still consider, because I think it’s fun to do it in different formats, and maybe people will enjoy it more. And actually, the Blu-Ray will be released probably for Christmas this year. And we also have behind-the-scenes, and certain scenes we never used before—we have a lot of footage.