When Sammy Longstreth and a group of friends went to the Tivoli to watch the yearly midnight screening of cult classic The Room, they weren’t expecting much more than a meet-n-greet and a film.
They planned to buy some branded underwear from Tommy Wiseau, who’s the controversial and enigmatic creator of the so-called “worst movie ever made,” as well as the subject of an upcoming James Franco biopic. After waiting in line for two hours, though, Longstreth figured, “You know, it’s my twenty-first birthday. I’m just gonna see if this works,” and decided to invite Wiseau to the party.
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“I was like, ‘Tommy, it’s my twenty-first birthday, I admire your way of thinking, I admire your cinematography skills, and it would mean a lot if you came to my party tomorrow,’” recalls Longstreth.
“He said, ‘Well, you have to go onto theroom.com, and then you send me an email, and we’ll see—you have to take the extra effort.’”
Longstreth went home and wrote the email immediately.
Longstreth, a marketing student on summer break from University of Sterling, had been a longtime fan of Wiseau. “I’d always been like, ‘Have you seen this masterpiece of film before?’ And if they hadn’t, I’d always made sure that they watched it.” So hanging out with Wiseau sounded like a fun time, if a long-shot.
Well, sometimes wishes do come true.
Longstreth says that the next day, he emailed Wiseau, as instructed—and got a response: a phone call from an assistant saying, “He will be attending the party.” And show up, Wiseau did.
Apparently, he brought some friends—that he said he met “at McDonald’s.”
The party spent the evening playing pinball and video games, and started a Team Wiseau versus Team Longstreth pinball tournament (Team Wiseau won “by a lot”).
“It was a bit of a surreal experience because he’d leave a room, then come back, and you would be like, ‘Oh, that’s actually Tommy Wiseau just sitting in my kitchen.’”
Wiseau sang happy birthday. And he even brought a gift. When Wiseau walked in, he was wearing two dogtags. On the back, one said, “14th anniversary of The Room. Love is blind. Love, Tommy Wiseau. You’re good, but be better!”
He took one off, put it on Longstreth, and said, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I bless you.” Then he looked Longstreth straight in the eyes and said, “Love is blind.” And then he walked casually to the kitchen to meet the other party guests.
“So I did receive a Tommy Wiseau blessing,” says Longstreth. “I think that’s good fortune for at least 100 years.”
Watch Longstreth reenact the moment:
Meeting Wiseau was both surprising—and not surprising at all. “If you’ve watched a lot of Tommy’s shows or films, you get a good sense of his character. But also, he’s a very mysterious person, even after meeting him.” Longstreth finds it hard to describe, even after spending a few hours with the man. “I imagine that if George Clooney had come over instead, George Clooney would’ve been a pretty normal interaction.”
And for fans wondering if Wiseau does indeed talk like he does in The Room, the answer is, “Yes, all the time.” He says things “both outlandish and abstract at the same time,” says Longstreth.
“I remember, my father asked him what he thought of The Disaster Artist, the book that was written about him.” Tommy replied, “I’m about 40 percent.”
40 percent what?
But it’s not weird, says Longstreth. If you’ve seen films or interviews, “that’s what you would expect Tommy to speak like.”
On a whole, the experience deepened Longstreth’s admiration of Wiseau. “I think people need to really appreciate that man for what he is. I think that people go to his shows sometimes ironically. But when you meet him, he’s a very deep and intellectual person.”
He adds, “There has been and will be only one person in human history like Tommy Wiseau.”
You can watch an edited video of the full evening:
Longstreth says he hopes Wiseau’s group might make a “party pad” out of the house for future events in St. Louis, since they referred to him as “the St. Louis squad.” As for the rest of his year, Longstreth also hopes “it just keeps going up from Tommy Wiseau—if that’s possible.”
