Tommy Wiseau

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Anyone on here seen The Room? If you have then you probably know what I'm getting at here but for those who don't know The Room is an indie romantic drama film written, directed, produced by and starring Tommy Wiseau, who to this day remains one of Hollywood's greatest mysteries. The film is now something of a cult classic and is renowned for it's incomprehensible script and questionable acting and directing, with Tommy Wiseau being the great genius behind it all. I must say when watching the film his acting is in a world of its own, seriously you cannot possibly compare Wiseau's performance to a single character on this planet, and upon seeing him in interviews he seems to be somewhat oblivious to how people work and he is utterly unable to answer questions or explain himself, going "ha ha next question!".

He's not like Ed Wood where he is impatiently passionate to the point of wanting to move onto the next shot over perfecting the current one, but is instead addicted to his passion to a degree which results in him sinking crazy sums of money (estimated $6 million) into his film, while somehow getting that far without realising a few basic fundamental principles. This all tallies really nicely with key traits of Asperger's, e.g a poor understanding of life issues and how relationships work and writing dialogue and scenes in a way which reflects this, difficultly conveying information verbally or textually and in his performance, reading dialogue out in an inconsistent and unnatural tone as if he doesn't understand what the words mean as well as having such an intense focus on one particular passion while still being completely unaware of a few basic principles. He seems to have a warped idea of the way humans work and is one of those people that creates art to satisfy his own impulses rather than to please others, I don't know but just his demeanour on screen and the way he is unaware of how incomprehensible his explanations, articulations and expressions are to others really heavily corresponds to traits I have observed in people with Asperger's including myself.

I actually have a friend who, like him, has great passion for his own methods, art and stories but is utterly oblivious to how to execute such things and so, as a result creates a piece that can only really be understood by him; even though he is frustrating to work with he is still far too fascinating to hate, which is exactly how I and many others feel about Tommy Wiseau. So to conclude, does anyone else see the correlation that suggests the broad possibility that Tommy Wiseau might just have Asperger's?

[Moved from Autism Politics, Activism, and Media Representation to Television, Film, and Video]

Maybe. He still can't direct a movie or act to save his life though.

(trying to see if other people have autism is something I kind of find a little strange personally btw lol)

Well if not Asperger's at least some form of autism. But certainly you have given me a lot to think about.

Greg Sestero, who played Mark (o hai Mark!) in 'The Room' had an autobiographical book published entitled 'The Disaster Artist'. He was recently interviewed by Doug Walker from thatguywiththeglasses.com. I remember that there used to be a double interview up on Youtube, in which Sestero and Wiseau were interviewed on 'The Room'. Wiseau gave his typical Wiseauvian answers, while Greg at points tried to give something of a serious answer to the interviewer, only to be interrupted and 'corrected' by Wiseau.

I wouldn't identify Wiseau as autistic at all. Instead, while he does seem to live in his own little world, he doesn't appear to have any problem approaching other people and at least entertaining the pretence that he gets along well with most of them. My take is he's probably a con-man from Romania (the name, the accent) who ended up in America, got it into his head to take up acting classes ('cause film = money[?]), and I'm stumped as to where he got the funds from to make 'The Room', but I doubt it's kosher. Everybody's always having a laugh with 'The Room', but if you peel away the clumsiness and absurdity of the film, you're left with one of the most disturbingly misogynist scenarios to have ever hit theaters. It's just that it's so woefully inadequate as a film, that people either overlook this, or give it a pass for basically disarming itself.

I like to poke fun of 'The Room' as much as the next guy and Greg Sestero, but when I take it at face value it just makes me queasy.

It's not something I generally pursue and I do shy away from it when needed, but I've reached a level of awareness that means I can't help but notice how I am different from others and consequently notice differences in the odd person. So naturally I am drawn to those specific traits, can you really blame me for that?

And no in all seriousness he is likely more of a conman or a mere eccentric rather then anything specific in this sense.

I don’t understand all the responses that say Tommy Wisseau is a conman.

Who has he conned? There is no evidence that I’ve seen of people not being paid by him during the creation of “The Room”. He bought and paid for all the cameras.

All the evidence I’ve seen is that he has difficulty explaining himself to people and connecting with them on an emotional level.

If anything, he became hyper-fixated on being an actor and a director, as well as a leading man.

I don’t know one way or the other if he’s autistic, but there is no evidence pointing toward him being a conman.

I dunno. Maybe some sort of Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

He definitely is a quirky guy, but IMO, doesn't seem as if he could have AS or HFA.