The Disaster Artist (film)

Plot

Cast

Production

Development

Casting

Music

Filming

Release

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Accolades

Historical accuracy

• In the film, Tommy gets the inspiration to write The Room simply after Greg comments "I wish we could just make our own movie", during a conversation on the rooftop about Hollywood rejecting them. In real life, Tommy was inspired to write it after seeing The Talented Mr. Ripley in theaters. The only connection to The Talented Mr. Ripley portrayed in the film is that Tommy names Mark after Matt Damon.
• While the turmoil on set is depicted in the film, the real life production had a much higher turnover rate, going through three different sets of crew.
• The film suggests that Greg's girlfriend broke up with him because of Greg's relationship with Tommy. In real life, Greg's small successes in the industry before The Room were what caused their breakup. Neither Tommy nor The Room had anything to do with it.
• Greg never met Bryan Cranston in real life, and wasn't forced to choose between the film and shooting an episode of Malcolm in the Middle. In real life, Greg was planning on shaving his beard after filming wrapped so that no one would recognize him, but the beard-shaving scene ruined his plans. However, Tommy did mess with a different cast member's schedule in real life, though this was removed from the film. Kyle Vogt had to leave for a different commitment, and he warned Tommy about this in plenty of time. However, Tommy still failed to shoot all of his scenes in time.
• Greg getting his role as young Andre Toulon in Retro Puppet Master is never brought up in the film, and Tommy's jealousy of this is redirected toward Greg's relationship with Amber. However, Greg did join The Room out of desperation after parts dried up as depicted in the film. Furthermore, Tommy only began his attempts at modelling after seeing Greg earn his SAG-AFTRA status from his Retro Puppet Master.
• Greg was already slightly jaded and didn't smile much at the time he first met Tommy, and most of his and naivete were already covered before he even attended Jean Shelton's class.
• The film presents Tommy's condo as being much cleaner and much more organized than when Greg first went there in real life. According to the book, there was dust-heavy and disused car with the Zodiac Killer sign drawn in it next to Tommy's car space, the elevator was creaky, and the condo was covered in red with ruined floors, zebra-skin rugs, dozens of Disney toys and Dalmatian figures, and a mangled mannequin in the corner.
• In the film, Tommy and Greg move to Los Angeles on a random whim, where they share Tommy's apartment. In real life, Greg was already thinking about moving there, so Tommy offered his apartment in the area for free. At first, Tommy stayed behind in San Francisco, but after a while, he moved back in full time.
• The film depicts The Room as being planned as a movie from the beginning. Tommy actually originally wrote it as a possible stage play.
• According to the book, Greg's car was a 1991 Chevy Lumina. The film also displays Greg driving a Lumina, but it is a 1996 model instead.
• The film combines script supervisor Sandy Schklair with Byron, a stagehand who Greg nicknamed "the director of yelling", and who took over for Sandy after he quit. In the film, Sandy is shown working and commenting on the sex scenes. According to the book, Sandy was not present for the filming of those scenes, because he was worried that Tommy's behavior would make it a nightmare to film. He deliberately scheduled the sex scenes to be a few of the last scenes that were filmed, and he quit the day before they were filmed. In the film, Sandy is also at the premiere, though the book states that he wasn't invited.
• The film merges Kyle Vogt with his replacement, Greg Ellery. In the film, Kyle is present throughout production and is even invited to the premiere. In real life, he had left before the birthday party scene was filmed, and Ellery replaced him. According the book, Kyle also wasn't invited to the premiere, because Tommy believed that by leaving production, Kyle "betrayed" him.
• In a similar way, the film merges director of photography Raphael Smadja with his replacement, Graham Futerfas, who himself was replaced by the film's only credited DP, Todd Baron. According to the book, Graham was the only one who ever directly called Tommy out on his wrongdoings, specifically, lying about installing a generator. The film replaces this with Raphael calling Tommy out on his treatment of the cast and crew, and while Graham quit after this in real life, the film replaces this with Raphael only threatening to quit, but deciding against it.
• According to the book, Tommy and Greg's road trip to James Dean's death site happened after they spent a few weeks getting to know each other. In the film, it happens after they only do one practice session together.
• In the film, Jean Shelton's comments are given to the teachers at the second acting school Tommy attends, and one noted as a shoddy "tourist trap" in the book.
• Todd Barron, who was the director of photography for the third act of The Room's production, and the only one who was credited for this position, only appears very briefly in the film as a second-unit photographer. As mentioned above, this is because in the film, Raphael Smadja stays on board until principal photography wraps, instead of quitting a mere third of the way through.
• In real life, Tommy's reaction to the audience's mockery at the premiere was anybody's guess, because according to the book, Greg lost sight of Tommy when the lights went down. In the film, however, his increasing reactions of confusion, panic, humiliation and despair are given great focus. Likewise, the whole scene afterwards, in which he flees the theater and reconciles with Greg through a heartfelt retrospective on their amusingly awful movie was not described in the book.
• The film very mildly exaggerates Dan Janjigian and his method acting from the book's description.
• Tommy's dark and troubled background, which explains most of his strange behavior and why he wanted to make The Room, is removed from the film. In the book, Greg suggests that this was because for Tommy, America and Hollywood symbolized success and freedom from a Third World communized country, where he was almost killed several times, as well as no longer being mistreated for being an immigrant.
• Greg's French heritage, which Greg took much pride in, is completely removed from the film, and his mother shows no sign of being a French immigrant. Also, Marcus, who Tommy hired to spy on the production under the guise of a making-of documentary, is never explicitly revealed to be a Czech.
• The film portrays Tommy as being kinder than in the book, by removing, altering and downplaying several of his crueler real-life actions, such as recording all of Greg's phone calls and the calls of everyone else to and from his home, emotionally and monetarily manipulating Greg, infiltrating and snooping through Greg's mail, lying to director of photography Graham Futerfas about installing a generator, and making Juliette Danielle cry by verbally abusing her at one point.
• The film depicts Greg's mother as merely an understandably concerned parent. According to the book, in real life, she raised many of the same concerns, but in a less supportive way, by implying that he lacks talent, and at one point, she even severed Greg's big-time acting agent's business ties with Greg. Her first encounter with Tommy in the film is also much more pleasant than it was described in the book, in which she reportedly told him, "Don't rape my son", before they left.
• The film depicts Greg joining The Room in a more positive light by depicting him as wanting to help Tommy fulfill his dream. According to the book, however, in real life, Greg had formed a more negative impression of Tommy already, and he only joined The Room to net more money, because his own acting prospects had fizzled out. Also, in a real-life incident that was removed from the film, Tommy conspired to give Greg the role as Mark, instead of Don, the actor he had already hired, Greg was complicit of the ridiculous lies that Tommy used to string Don along.
• The film closes with the remark that to the present day, no one knows how old Tommy really is, or where he is really from. This is untrue, as in real life, Greg did find out how old Tommy is, but simply did not add it in the book.
• Though Greg was frustrated with Tommy's behavior, he never lashed out at him over it during filming, let alone during the filming of the football scene, as shown in the film. In fact, Tommy was the one who got angry while filming that scene, because he kept dropping the ball no matter how gently Greg threw it to him, and because Greg said, "Catch this." in French during one take. However, Greg did snap at Tommy once, which is where the strangely well-acted "Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!" line comes from.
• Mark's mention of Guerrero Street was not written into the script as shown in the film. In real life, Greg ad-libbed it to rib the highly secretive Tommy, who was furious at this, but was forced to keep it anyway as it was the only take that had usable audio.
• The film exaggerates Tommy's character traits from real life. For instance, Tommy's broken English is exaggerated, making him seem much harder to understand than he actually is, and his lack of common sense is exaggerated as well, such as having Johnny writhe around with Lisa's red dress after shooting himself.
• In the film, Carolyn Minnott faints from dehydration on-set as a result of Tommy's refusal to install an air conditioner or even purchase bottled water for the cast and crew, and Tommy dismissively accuses her of napping on the job. In real life, the fainting incident did occur, but Tommy was very quick to get Carolyn to the hospital. However, Greg believes that Tommy did this to avoid being sued, not to be kind.
• While the film depicts the premiere of The Room being met with laughter and applause, the real initial screening wasn't as warm, and many audience members walked out in the first five minutes; it took time for its cult status to develop.