10 Unbelievable Behind-The-Scenes Stories About The Room
5. Nobody Knows Why Mark Shaved His Beard
The Room is full of moments that make you think “why the hell did they do that?” and there is perhaps no bigger moment than when Mark appears without a beard.
Greg Sestero’s character wore a beard for most of the film, until the scene in the alleyway, where he appears without one. The film plays this up as a huge moment; the music changes, the camera zooms in on Mark’s face and the whole atmosphere of the film changes. Just because a guy had a shave.
This whole scene is a confusing mess once you read into it. Firstly, Sestero claims that the only reason that he shaved his beard was because Tommy told him to; apparently Wiseau wanted an excuse to give Sestero the nickname “babyface” and claimed that the unveiling of Mark’s clean-shaven face would be “a moment”.
Secondly, the whole scene was apparently dreamt up on set by Wiseau himself, who then refused to explain to anybody why the scene needed to be in the film. Instead, the scene was shot and several other scenes, which Sestero claims were actually relevant to the story, were cut.
Wiseau thinking that Mark shaving his beard would be “a moment” goes to show just how out of touch he was with his audience, or any audience for that matter. Its clear that the director had absolutely no idea what made a compelling movie and didn’t have a clue what audiences wanted to see.
Greg just needs to be grateful that a shaved beard was the worst thing that happened to him on set.