Ben Stiller believes that Robert Downey Jr.’s character in Tropic Thunder would've gone over well if the film were made today.
As explained by People, the 2008 satirical comedy film featured Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus, a White Australian method actor who underwent “pigmentation alteration” surgery to play Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris, a Black character, complete in blackface.
In a new interview with Collider, Stiller, now 58, concedes that a film like Tropic Thunder couldn’t be made today.
“Obviously, in this environment, edgier comedy is just harder to do,” Stiller told Collider in a new interview published on Sunday. “I think even at the time we were fortunate to get it made, and I credit that, actually, to Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks. He read it and was like, 'Alright, let's make this thing.' It's a very inside movie when you think about it.”
“But yeah, the idea of Robert playing that character who's playing an African American character, I mean, incredibly dicey. Even at the time, of course, it was dicey too,” he continued. “The only reason we attempted it was I felt like the joke was very clear in terms of who that joke was on — actors trying to do anything to win awards. But now, in this environment, I don't even know if I would have ventured to do it, to tell you the truth. I'm being honest.”
Downey Jr., 59, also stood by his role in the film during a January episode of the Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast.
“There used to be an understanding with an audience, and I’m not saying that the audience is no longer understanding — I’m saying that things have gotten very muddied,” the Iron Man star said earlier this year.
“The spirit that [Ben] Stiller directed and cast and shot Tropic Thunder in was, essentially, as a railing against all of these tropes that are not right and [that] had been perpetuated for too long,” he added.