The Disaster Artist: 10 Biggest Book Omissions

In The Disaster Artist, the film The Talented Mr. Ripley is given a fleeting mention for inspiring the name of the character of Mark in The Room. In reality, this is entirely true. Tommy Wiseau thought that the film's star, Matt Damon, was named Mark Damon, and named the character after him.

However, The Talented Mr. Ripley hold far more significance to the story of how The Room was made than The Disaster Artist lets on.

In Greg Sestero's original book, he recounts being taken to see the film by a friend who was concerned about Sestero's strange friendship with Wiseau. This friend pointed out the parallels between their friendship and the toxic one that is portrayed in the movie.

While Sestero didn't think Wiseau would murder him, like the character Tom Ripley does to his friend, he acknowledge the similarities.

It wasn't until the two went to see the film together, and Wiseau openly wept at it, that Sestero had an epiphany. Tommy Wiseau, like Tom Ripley, was, at his core, a deeply sympathetic man with a crippling fear of rejection.

The film had a deeply profound effect on Wiseau to the extent that it was immediately upon leaving the theater that he decided he would make his own movie: The Room.