Schklair announced that he desired credit for directing The Room. Schklair told EW that Wiseau became too engrossed with his acting duties to direct the film properly and asked him to "tell the actors what to do, and yell 'Action' and 'Cut' and tell the cameraman what shots to get." The script supervisor also said that Wiseau asked Schklair to "direct [his] movie" but refused to give up the director title. This story is corroborated by one of the film's actors (who requested anonymity) and by Sestero in The Disaster Artist. Sestero describes Schklair taking charge of numerous sequences in which Wiseau found himself unable to remember lines or adequately interact with the rest of the cast, but jokes that claiming directorial credit was like "claiming to have been the Hindenburgs principal aeronautics engineer", and also notes that Schklair left the production before the end of principal photography in favor of the short film Jumbo Girl due to that project being shot by Janusz Kamiński. Wiseau has dismissed Schklair's comments, saying, "Well, this is so laughable that...you know what? I don't know, probably only in America it can happen, this kind of stuff"; he similarly implied that Schklair's abandoning of the film during filming was justification for not receiving such a credit. Analysis Interpretations, themes, and influences The Room is considered to be semi-autobiographical as it draws on specific incidents from Wiseau's own life, such as the details of how Johnny came to San Francisco and met Lisa, and the nature of Johnny and Mark's friendship. According to Sestero, the character of Lisa is based on a former lover of Wiseau's to whom he intended to propose marriage with a diamond engagement ring, but because she "betray[ed] him multiple times", their relationship ended in a break-up. Defining the script as "an advisory warning about the perils of having friends", Sestero has described The Room as Wiseau's "life study of human interaction", dealing with additional themes of trust, fear and truth. Sestero further postulates that Wiseau based Lisa's explicit conniving on the character Tom Ripley, after Wiseau had a profound emotional reaction to the film The Talented Mr. Ripley, and matches elements of its three main characters to those in The Room; Sestero has likewise indicated that the character Mark was named for the Ripley actor Matt Damon, whose first name Wiseau had misheard. Wiseau also drew on the chamber plays