The Story Behind Tommy Wiseau’s Secret 'Disaster Artist' Cameo (One He Wants a SAG Campaign for)

hen The Disaster Artist was first announced in 2014, one thing was obvious from the very start, and even before there had been any casting announcements: Tommy Wiseau would have some sort of cameo role.

The mysterious director/star/writer/producer of The Room – being played by James Franco in A24’s comedy drama (which Franco also directs) – is so central to the story about his cult “so bad it’s amazing” film that to not include him in some small manner would be tantamount to Stan Lee not popping up in the next Marvel outing.

Lo and behold, Wiseau’s name did indeed appear on The Disaster Artist’s cast listing (amid a bumper crop of cameos). But anyone who has already seen the film – which opened in the U.S. on Friday – would be forgiven for having missed him. That’s because the scene is right at the very end, after every single credit has rolled (and most people will have already shuffled out of the theater). And it’s there for a reason.

For a film that prides itself on the sheer number of ridiculous moments, Wiseau’s scene in The Disaster Artist is easily the most bonkers, with Franco’s long-haired, weirdly muscular and heavily accented version of the man coming face-to-face with the actual man himself. It’s imitator meets original. And it’s mad.

“You can’t blame us [for putting the scene at the end],” Franco tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Because [Wiseau’s] main stipulation was that he have a scene in the movie, and then he kept demanding that it be opposite me.”

As it turns out, Wiseau had made his scene a contractual obligation when the producers were buying his life rights. But for someone whose rather unique appearance and voice make him almost instantly recognizable, the filmmakers had hoped they could put him opposite absolutely anyone but Franco.

“We just tried to explain to him: ‘Tommy, I don’t mean to insult you, but you just can’t play anyone other than yourself,” says Franco.

But Wiseau wasn’t having it. “They tried to give me different guys,” The Room director tell THR. “And I was like, it doesn’t work for me.” It had to be Franco.

“So we wrote a very short scene,” he says. “In our defense, we had to make it disposable, because he was insisting on doing it opposite me. It was like, there was no way that that was ever going to work in our movie. It just doesn’t make sense.”