In fact, the movie's premise is modelled off of Villechaize's real encounter with the journalist Sacha Gervasi in 1993. At the time, a 26-year-old Gervasi was working for Britain's Daily Mail. He pitched a story about discovering the whereabouts of the once-famous Tattoo of Fantasy Island and, when the story was accepted, boarded a plane to L.A. Over the course of the three days they spent together, Gervasi got his story — and did so by erasing all preconceptions and actually listening to Villechaize. "‘I’m a fucking human being," Gervasi recalled Villechaize saying in an interview with Newsweek . "'You’ve heard all the bullshit stories. Do you want to hear the real one?'" Within the week, Villechaize shot himself. “He grabbed on to a random stranger and let it all out," Gervasi said.