Greg Sestero: cult film star who was in The Room on screening his new movie in Manchester and Q&A

A cult film star who found fame through The Room is coming to Manchester to screen his new movie and meet his fans.

Greg Sestero is renowned for playing the role of Mark in Tommy Wiseau’s cult classic, which has been dubbed ‘the Citizen Kane of bad movies’.

Now he is coming back to Manchester for an event at the city’s Everyman cinema screening his new film Miracle Valley, a horror-thriller based on the real-life story of a cult, and take part in a question-and-answer session.

Greg spoke to ManchesterWorld about why he always looks forward to doing events in the UK, how his first fan letter came from Manchester and what it is like to be renowned for The Room with its loyal and devoted fanbase almost two decades since the film first hit the screen.

Why is Greg Sestero coming to Manchester?

Greg, who is originally from California and now lives in Los Angeles, is attending a screening of Miracle Valley at the Everyman in Manchester on 7 November. As well as getting the chance to see the new movie fans will be able to ask him about his career in a Q&A session.

A horror-thriller about a photographer and his girlfriend who become entangled with sinister forces after being invited to a desert getaway, Miracle Valley is something of a love letter to classic ‘70s horror favourites such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Greg is in the middle of a fairly busy promotional and events schedule around the film’s release (when we speak to him he is in the city of Vilnius as part of a trip to the Baltic countries of Lithuania and Latvia) but says he always looks forward to coming to the UK and Manchester.

He said: “I’m stoked to come to Manchester. I’ve been a couple of times and we always have a good time. I used to do shows at Gorilla which was a really cool space and this time I’m at the Everyman which is a really great cinema chain. There are comfortable sofas and really good food and drink.

“I first came to the UK in about 2012 to do events and it was crazy, the fanbase was pretty manic. We did London first and then we started doing shows in Liverpool and after that all over, in Leeds, Sheffield and other cities. I made a bunch of friends around the country and the audience there is always up for a good time.

“You guys in England have such a sarcastic humour that I love. I always the directness of English people and I love hearing people give their takes on films.

“Miracle Valley is inspired by a cult back in the ‘60s. There was a preacher who believed in rare blood types. It’s kind of a homage to all those great ‘70s horror movies. It’s funny because we did a double bill with The Room and they played really well together. That’s the funny thing about showing movies to a crowd: you think they will feel one thing and then it just takes on a life of its own.”

Manchester also represents something of a return to where it all started for Greg as the first time he received fan mail it came from the city.

He said: “When I started out and moved to LA the things everyone wanted to be in were shows like Dawson’s Creek and Gilmore Girls. I did a movie called Retro Puppet Master and the first fan letter I ever received was on Myspace from a girl living in Manchester. I don’t know how she found the movie but she sent me a note saying she thought I had potential but the movie sucked. She didn’t know I had been in The Room so I said she should see that.”

What did Greg say about being in The Room and its subsequent cult classic status?

Greg’s career blossomed because of and in many ways has been defined by The Room, which came out in 2003 and has achieved cult classic status with its distinctive and inconsistent approach to storytelling, its subplots that go nowhere and remain unresolved and Tommy Wiseau’s memorable acting performance as the central character Johnny.

Although it bombed at the box office and was panned by critics, some of whom called it one of the worst films ever made, it quickly took on a quirky life of its own, with screenings on the midnight circuit selling out and then fans turning up to special interactive showings dressed as the characters, clutching props used in the film and joining in by shouting out certain lines.

It was a subject Greg returned to when he wrote the book The Disaster Artist about the experience of making the film and what subsequently happened, which was also made into a film starring James Franco in 2017.

Greg reflected on the unusual path through the world of the movies his life has taken since meeting Tommy Wiseau in an acting class and then agreeing to be in The Room.

He said: “It’s a totally bizarre journey. You make this movie which you don’t expect anybody will ever watch and which makes very little sense, which has very little appeal to anything that could go mainstream, and then this happens. I was shocked when I would see crowds in the UK just going nuts for this movie.

“I went to screenings and met fans in the UK and watched the movie with them, and I realised that they really want something unique. Especially with a cult movie you want to give people something they can’t see anywhere else, Any time I’ve made something since then I’ve tried to keep that in mind.

“When I did The Room I thought it would be a couple of months and then I would do something else, but all these years later it’s something people love ironically. “

Given that, Greg says there was some trepidation around going back to the making of The Room and setting down his account of the events that transpired for his memoir The Disaster Artist.

He said: “Any time you approach anything related to fans it can be very touchy. They have a certain ownership of the film and what it means to them and people get angry when you take something they’ve loved for years and turn it into something else. I knew the book had to be fresh and give fans a story they didn’t know.

“It was never my goal to reveal the mystery of The Room or take away from it, I just wanted to add to it. I asked fans questions about what they would and wouldn’t want to know about the film and what they would want answered. I told the stories of how I met Tommy and how we moved to LA and I focused more on the personal journey. It was definitely a sensitive undertaking. You can see it with reboots, people get really upset.”

What is Greg working on now?

Greg says his life as a cult film star and his association with The Room and its afterlife has got him to a position where he can make the films he wants to create and take more risks in doing so.

He is currently working on a film about alien abduction called Forbidden Sky which will be filmed in Texas and New Mexico and revolves around the Roswell incident. Audiences who turn up for the Everyman event in Manchester will get a sneak preview of this on the night, Greg says.

He said: “I think if you just wait for your phone to ring from someone to give you the part you want you can wait forever, it might not happen. I try to go after things I really want to do and try to make unique films. What’s cool is getting to show them in theatres to audiences. It’s not as good as Dawson’s Creek, but hey, what is?”