'Oh, hai Mark!': Tommy Wiseau explains how the 'Disaster Artist' scene veered from real life
Tommy Wiseau famously cosigned The Disaster Artist, James Franco’s Oscar-nominated look at the making of the 2003 midnight classic The Room, by saying the film was “99.9 percent accurate.” Wiseau initially complained about the lighting, but ultimately it was the far-from-athletic manner in which Franco depicted him throwing a football in the film’s memorable “male bonding” scenes that irked him.
But there were plenty of other moments that were “exaggerated” for the big-screen adaptation of the book of the same name, penned by The Room star Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell.
During a recent Facebook Live interview with Yahoo Entertainment (watch above), Wiseau pointed to the infinitely mimicked “Oh, hai Mark!” scene that is so prominent in the film, it accounted for its entire first trailer.
In The Disaster Artist, Franco’s Wiseau continually muffs the non-sequituring monologue (“I did not hit her! It’s not true! It’s bullshit! I did not hit her! I did not!… Oh, hai Mark.”), so Seth Rogen’s script supervisor — and eventually the whole cast and crew — feed him the lines.
“On [The Room] set, we didn’t do that,” Wiseau said. “Because I was always saying, ‘You have to be quiet’ when we’re [doing] the lines. Any line means something. But people didn’t realize my vision.”
Overall, Wiseau called it an “emotional” experience watching Franco et al. film The Disaster Artist. And he maintains that he’s ultimately very satisfied with the final product. “They did a very good job,” he said. “They had a good pace. I think the music’s pretty good. The story is right on the money. … And it wasn’t a parody, which I loved.”
Wiseau is still a bit salty about that football tossing, though. “He threw the football like a little girl, so I didn’t like that,” he said. “I don’t throw the football like that. I am very keen on how I throw the football.”
To see how Wiseau throws the football in real life, just skip ahead to the end of our chat above (around minute 30) and behold some good old-fashioned male bonding.
The Disaster Artist hits DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday.
Watch Wiseau talk about meeting Tonya Harding at the Golden Globes:
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