Tommy Wiseau is a diva wrapped in a vampire cloaked in dubious Eastern European origins. He's equal parts fearless and fragile, cunning but childlike. And over a decade of interviews about the 2003 cult phenomenon The Room, which he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in, he's perfected the art of deflecting questions and talking your ear off without ever really saying anything. He won't divulge his true age, his home country (or planet), or the real story behind the $6 million cinematic catastrophe into which he poured his life and soul. By anyone's standards, Wiseau is Hollywood's most unsolvable riddle.

It's fortunate, then, that his co-star and right-hand man Greg Sestero released a tell-all memoir last week chronicling his peculiar friendship with Wiseau alongside his misadventures working on the best worst movie ever made. Co-written with journalist Tom Bissell, The Disaster Artistdelivers an evenhanded portrayal of Wiseau and elucidates more than Room superfans had ever dreamt of learning about their craggy, pale-faced idol. We combed through the book to bring you its most fascinating revelations about ol' T.W., not the least of which is his penchant for pounding a six-pack of Red Bull and butchering Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting":

1. You can't take him anywhere.

Over the course of a single dinner outing with Sestero in 2002 — the night before production began on The Room — Wiseau refused to surrender his Benz's keys to the valet for fear that the man would fart in his seat, conned his way into a reservation by identifying himself as "Ron," "Robert," and finally "John," and alienated a flirtatious pair of women by asking them, "So what do you do besides drink?"

2. He claims to have amassed his fortune by selling pleather jackets, trinkets, and knockoff Levi's.

After moving to San Francisco, according to Wiseau, he sold yo-yos, toy birds, jackets, and jeans with missing belt loops, eventually building his business into a multi-property retail empire called Street Fashions. He dubbed himself the "King of Levi's," and years later snagged his SAG membership by writing, filming, and producing his own Street Fashions commercial, starring himself as a pseudo-Shakespearean character.

3. He also has a background in psychology. Or psychiatry.

Wiseau made honor roll in a psychology program at Laney College in Oakland, and once told Sestero he had seen a psychologist or psychiatrist, though he couldn't distinguish between the two. These experiences informed the dialogue he wrote for Peter the psychologist (Kyle Vogt), whose lines include such insights as "People are people" and "She's a sociopath — she can't love anyone."

4. Some of The Room's most iconic scenes have their roots in his reality.

The first time Wiseau ever played catch or threw a football was in Golden Gate Park with his best friend Sestero, and that's precisely the scene he wrote for on-screen BFFs Johnny (Wiseau) and Mark (Sestero). Sestero improvised "Guerrero Street" into Mark's now-infamous line about a two-timing woman who is beaten and taken to a hospital, because he knew that was the street on which Wiseau lived. And the inane, baffling dialogue among Johnny, Mark, and Peter about Bay to Breakers "weirdos" mirrors the time Wiseau secretly signed up Sestero for the seven-mile run the day before.

5. During production of The Room, he spied on his cast and crew via behind-the-scenes footage.

Wiseau hired a Czech kid named Markus to shoot raw footage for a making-of documentary, ordering him to film everything, all the time. Wiseau, who watched the footage daily, heard every snicker and insult uttered beyond his earshot. This wasn't his first time recording others, either — Sestero later discovered hours upon hours of phone recordings Wiseau had made for years with his yard-sale tape recorder, the same one Johnny uses to prove Lisa's (Juliette Danielle) infidelity.

6. Despite having written the script himself, he found it nearly impossible to remember or deliver his lines.

The seven-second scene in which Johnny enters the rooftop set and says, "It's not true! I did not hit her! It's bullshit! I did not. Oh, hi, Mark" took Wiseau 32 takes to film over the span of three hours. "Line!" he would call out. His inability to deliver the line "How could they say this about me? I don't believe it. I'll show them. I'll record everything" resulted in the aid of a large cue card.

7. The best advice he says anyone's ever given him? "Be the star. Make yourself the star. Don't think about anybody else."

The man who advised Wiseau to "make sure you put yourself front and center" was Drew Caffrey, a pipe-smoking father-figure type he had met in San Francisco. He honored Caffrey's 1999 death, inexplicably, by crediting him as one of The Room's executive producers as well as its San Francisco casting director.

8. He's comfortable with his body, maybe even to a fault.

When Sestero and Wiseau lived together in L.A., Wiseau would do 4 a.m. pull-ups on a bar he'd installed in Sestero's bedroom doorway. Pleased with his physique, he prolonged his naked time while shooting The Room's love scenes, pointing out his muscles on the playback monitor. He decided he'd have to bare his full ass at the end of the first love scene — a nod to Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall — in order for the movie to sell.

9. After he fled Communist Bloc Europe as a young man, he had it pretty rough.

Wiseau fled to Strasbourg, he says, where one night a group of policemen slapped, stripped, and threatened him, forcing him into two rounds of Russian roulette before they eventually released him. An "older gentleman" took Wiseau in, allowing him to sleep in his apartment but also propositioning him for sexual favors. And so Wiseau arranged to visit his aunt and uncle in New Orleans. As he waited for his sponsorship to come through, he worked in a Parisian sex shop to save up money.

10. He really, really loves America.

Wiseau spent his childhood in Eastern Europe romanticizing all things American, and once he reached the U.S., he wasted little time in becoming a full-on patriot. On the one-year anniversary of 9/11, he insisted the cast and crew of The Room observe five full minutes of silence, embarked on a colorful rant about Osama bin Laden, then led everyone in a "USA" chant. Instead of celebrating Thanksgiving Day, Wiseau celebrates Thanksgiving Month with 30 days straight of full turkey dinners. "I love living American life," he told Sestero by way of explanation.

PLUS: Read 'The Man Behind the Best Worst Movie Ever Made' >>

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