Athena Cinema to host author and cult film actor, Greg Sestero of “The Room”

The Athena Cinema will welcome Greg Sestero for a special event titled “Oh, Hi Mark! An Evening Inside ‘The Room’ with Greg Sestero.” The evening will feature two special screenings of his cult classic film “The Room” on Saturday, April 23, with a Q&A prior to each showing. The screenings will take place at 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

An actor, producer, director and writer, Sestero is most widely known as the author of The New York Times bestseller “The Disaster Artist” and for his role as the traitorous “Mark” in the film “The Room.” Sestero reunited with the creator of “The Room,” Tommy Wiseau, for 2017 and 2018’s dark comedy thriller “Best F(r)iends, Volume One and Two,” as well as for his most recent work, “Miracle Valley,” a new horror film in which he makes his directorial debut.

The “so-bad-it’s-incredible” brainchild of the enigmatic Wiseau, “The Room” is revered by fans for its confounding storytelling, over-the-top performances, and nonsensical filmmaking that few films can dare match.

Retold in Sestero’s book “The Disaster Artist,” which was later adapted to an Oscar-nominated film directed by and starring James Franco, “The Room,” started as an earnest attempt from amateur auteur Wiseau to make a dramatic feature film. The reality on-set was that Sestero and others were just as puzzled by what they were making as the audiences who would eventually see the finished product.

“The thing with ‘The Room’ is that you can’t really ever talk about acting because you’re saying stuff you would normally never say,” Sestero told podcaster Chris Van Vliet in a recent interview. “I mean, you can’t really call that acting. We’re surviving that dialogue.”

After a few years as an underground punchline, “The Room” blossomed into a wildly popular fan favorite after word spread online about what a riot it was to watch. Soon after, forums were abuzz with musings on the mysteries of its creation and how the film got made.

Today, “The Room” draws sell-out crowds in theaters as it continues to pique the curiosity of the uninitiated and bring people together for 91 minutes of wall-to-wall incredulous laughter. For the past decade, Sestero has happily visited theaters throughout North America to answer audiences’ most burning questions and introduce the film that jumpstarted his career—albeit in a way he never intended.

“It went beyond just a role,” Sestero explained. “’The Room’ taught me so much, it’s introduced me to so many great people, and it’s brought me around the world… All of that would have never happened, and it’s a movie that people genuinely love. In the end, I think things were meant to be.”

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased here.  

For more information contact Alexandra Kamody, director, Athena Cinema, at kamodya@ohio.edu. The Athena Cinema is one of downtown Athens unique historic treasures. Its mission is to bring the finest independent film to Southeastern Ohio and create a shared space for dialogue. For more on this event, visit athenacinema.com/ohhimark.