There's not many people out there who'd be willing to take ownership of directing what's now described as one of the worst films ever made, but that's just what script supervisor Sandy Schklair is doing.
In a new book due to be published this month, Schklair claims that he was the director of The Room - not Tommy Wiseau. In an interview with THR, Schklair says that Wiseau "had no idea what the directing process was, no idea how you shoot," and that he directed the "entire movie, except for the love scenes and the second unit stuff in San Francisco."
Schklair is played by Seth Rogen in The Disaster Artist, James Franco's film about the making of The Room, and does show Schklair as effectively directing a number of key scenes - particularly the infamous "I did not hit her, it's not true" scene. The book, imaginatively titled Yes I Directed The Room, describes the chaotic production behind the film and what Wiseau was really like on set.
For his part, Wiseau has denied Schklair's claims for years. Greg Sestero, who wrote The Disaster Artist with Tom Bissell, said that Schklair's work was the "only reason we’d gotten anything remotely watchable on film." Schklair, meanwhile, claims that the so-bad-it's-good moments of the film were intentional and that he was responsible for them.
According to Schklair, "(the) idea was to keep the insanity, but push it as far over the top as I can and preserve the fact that everybody there knows I’m making a comedy... except one person."
The book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble from Friday. You can read Schklair's full interview with THR here.
Via THR
