Ben Stiller talks about “Tropic Thunder’

August 5th, 2008 · No Comments

tropic_thunder_cast Ben Stiller talks about Tropic Thunder

Twenty-two years ago, Ben Stiller got a meeting for “Platoon.”

Not an audition. A meeting.

Stiller was just starting out and had exactly one credit on his resume — an episode (a very special one, no doubt) of the CBS sitcom “Kate & Allie.” “I got there, and Oliver Stone looked at me and, said, ‘You’re cute,”’ he recalls. “‘You’re cute.’ That was it. I never got to audition.”

Shortly afterward, Stiller did win a small part in Steven Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun.” Then three of his buddies went off to the Philippines for a few months to make “Hamburger Hill.” So, about that time, Stiller got an idea for a sketch that, two decades later, became this summer’s highly-anticipated comedy “Tropic Thunder” opening Wednesday.

“I always thought it was funny that actors making war movies would go to these fake boot camps and talk about this incredible experience and how the two weeks really changed their lives,” says Stiller, 42. “It always seemed to me that we’re such (wimps).”

That idea is put to the test in “Tropic Thunder” when a group of self-serious actors journey to the jungle to make a Vietnam War movie, get marooned and run into actual bad guys. Stiller, who co-wrote and directed the movie, plays an aging action star returning to his bread-and-butter after trying to stretch himself (read: win an Oscar) by playing a mentally disabled farmhand who can talk to animals in a movie called “Simple Jack.”

Jack Black turns up as a drug-addicted funny guy famous for his tent-pole franchise “The Fatties,” in which he plays every member of a flatulent, obese family. (Stiller insists the character is not directly inspired by Eddie Murphy.) There are cameos from Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise (said to be a howl as a studio executive) and funny turns from up-and-comers Danny McBride and Jay Baruchel.

But the —Tropic Thunder” cast member everyone is talking about is Robert Downey Jr., who plays Kirk Lazarus, a five-time Oscar-winning Aussie who dyes his skin black to play an African-American soldier.

“The joke is an actor who takes himself so seriously that he ridiculously thinks he can immerse himself in this role,” Stiller says. “There were very few actors I thought could do it. Any sane person would have reservations.”

Says Downey: “It’s a part that does have the potential to be some kind of career-ender. It’s so out there. But Ben got the tone right. I think people are going to love this guy.”