Did Tommy Wiseau Actually Direct The Room?

For the longest time, being the director of The Room wasn't exactly something you'd want to put on your resume. But now that The Disaster Artist has thrust the 2003 film (dubbed the "Citizen Kane of bad movies") into the global spotlight, someone else is officially angling for credit.

Sandy Schklair, who served as script supervisor on The Room, has written a book called Yes, I Directed The Room, and he claims that Tommy Wiseau didn't actually run the shoot. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Schklair said Wiseau didn't know how to direct a movie, so Schklair ended up setting up most of the shots and giving instructions to the cast.

"[Wiseau] had no idea what the directing process was, no idea how you shoot," Schklair said. "I directed this entire movie, except for the love scenes and the second unit stuff in San Francisco."

In The Disaster Artist, Seth Rogen plays Schklair, who has been working in the industry since 1996 and is credited on movies like War, Inc. and The Devil's Rejects. There are several scenes in The Disaster Artist that show Schklair as the guy calling the shots, but his actual role behind the scenes isn't exactly clear. He said that an original crew list credits him as "Assistant Director/Script Supervisor/Whatever."

Schklair has made these claims for years and Wiseau has always rejected them, saying that while he may not have been the one saying "action," that doesn't mean he wasn't the director. But Schklair insists that The Disaster Artist doesn't show what really happened. "Anything in The Disaster Artist that actually shows Tommy directing, this never happened, ever," he said, adding that Wiseau often didn't even show up on the set when he wasn't acting in a scene.

Schklair also said that a lot of the mistakes and cheesy elements in The Room were actually his idea and put there on purpose. "Don't think any of this happened by accident," he said. "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."

In the book that The Disaster Artist is based on, author and The Room actor Greg Sestero said Schklair left the production on the second-to-last day because he was offered a better job. That prompted Wiseau to cut his name from the credits entirely.

So why would Schklair want credit for directing one of the worst films ever made? "For start, it's the truth," he said, admitting that he only started writing his book after he heard The Disaster Artist was going to be made into a movie. "[The Room] is never, ever going away. I keep trying to make it go away. And I don't know a director on this planet, including Steven Spielberg, who would not want to take credit for a movie that will not die."

Yes, I Directed The Room will be available online via Amazon and Barnes & Noble on Jan. 12.