Although the film is a comedy, a lot went into the writing and making of Tropic Thunder explains Ben Stiller, who co-wrote and directed the Hollywood satire. Stiller explains how the plot took the movie into some uneasy territory, from racial tension to egomaniacal actors.   

Q: How much of a challenge was this movie to make?

Ben Stiller: It was definitely. It’s been a long time in the making, about 10 years in terms of when we started working on the script. It was a really fun process because it’s something that I wanted to do for a long time. It was very collaborative between Justin, my writing partner, and Eton Cohen. We all worked together to keep working on the script to try to keep on making it funnier and better.

But figuring out the story and how it all sort of came together, that was really what took the most time. Because I knew what the beginning was always and I knew that I wanted it to end up with them saving one of the guys. But what happened in the jungle and how the characters interacted was sort of where we spent the time.

Q: Is it easy to separate yourself when you’re acting, separate yourself and take the director’s hat off and the producers hat off, and the writer, or do you have to wear those hats the whole time?

BS: I think when you’re acting you have to really let go and just be in the scene. That’s the time when you really have to let everything go otherwise you’re just not gonna be doing your thing. But you also have to be there for the other actors because they need a director. So that’s the sort of the tricky part of it but you make up for that by prepping for a long time. I had like six months of hard prep on the movie, so that really helped.

Q: Explain the Robert Downey Jr. character concept in your mind.

BS: The whole idea of the movie is really to make fun of actors and how far actors go and self important actors, actors who want recognition, actors. You know just like making fun of the need that actors have to be taken seriously and (with) Downey’s character the idea was like who is the most respected actor of his generation, five Oscars. He’s looking for new challenges, we thought this comedically, what would it be like the most wrong headed thing an actor could do thinking he could go too far, or how far he could go, thinking he could actually pull something off, a white actor playing a black character in a movie, it’s just ridiculous and wrong and yet who would think he could do this? Well some like really self important guy.

So that was the idea for this character and all leading up to the fact that this guy is so lost within himself he doesn’t know who he is and he is just lost. He’s played a woman, he’s played a gay priest, you know he’s played everything in the world so now he’s taking on this guy and he shouldn’t be playing this guy but you know, and it was very important for us in the movie to have a black actor who was there all the time just calling him on it, saying this is ridiculous. I thought there were very few guys who could actually pull that character off because it is a dicey one I think and it could be interpreted the wrong way. So it was a real short list, I knew it had to be a really great actor. It had to be somebody who was one of the most respected actors around and Downey is that, but he also has a great sense of humor and fearlessness and willingness to really go for it 100 percent.

Because when we were doing it, we didn’t know if it would work or not. I don’t think anybody had the arrogance to think oh yeah, we know this is gonna work. It was definitely like okay we’ll see, you know we’re just gonna try to keep to our intention of what the humor is coming through which is making fun of actors who take themselves too seriously. And then he had to put his head down, do the character, commit to it and then we got to the editing room, put it up. The first time we put it up, that was really the first time we’d get a feeling whether or not it would be accepted or not.

Q: Were you worried that Russell or any of the people you might have been lampooning would recognize themselves in this.

BS: Oh no I think actors have a really good sense of humor about themselves. I mean I was more just concerned that it wasn’t interpreted the wrong way, you know by the African American community.

Q: And thus far there hasn’t been any really any negative reaction.

BS: Not that I’m aware of, I feel like, I got a real sense of it when I first screened the movie and I was really looking for feedback and I wanted to hear so I put it in front of friends. I asked African American friends how they felt, I asked a lot of friends, just like what is (their) vibe on it and you know people said they got it. They said they got where it was coming from. Obviously with something like this, a movie like this there is a lot of pushing the envelope. You know I’m playing an actor who is playing a mentally impaired guy to try to win an Oscar. Tom Cruise is playing this foul-mouthed Jewish studio executive. It’s not underlined but all this stuff is out there that like people could really interpret their own way. I felt like that’s what this movie is and as long as we’re clear about our point of view on it, that’s all we can do is be clear about what we think is funny about this and as long as we have our intention in the right place, that’s all we could do and then let the movie hopefully speak for itself, in the context of the movie.

Q: Ben, was there reluctance on the part of the studio?

BS: You know, not really. We took a long time working on the script and by the time we were ready to make the movie and gave it to the studio, they read it and they got what it was. I think also it was made at Dream Works which is a pretty filmmaker-friendly studio. It’s run by Stacy Snyder who is a really smart executive and Steven Spielberg obviously he’s a filmmaker. So I gave it to him to read and he really thought it was funny and he thought it was, a little bit out there but he was supportive of it. And I think, we did a read through and they came to the read through and it seemed to play. Everybody knew there were issues with it, and that it wasn’t the easiest movie to pull off but I think that’s what was exciting about it too.

Q: What about clearances from the other studios.

BS: On the logos? No the logos, that was great. We didn’t think we’d get the logos for the trailers for the beginning and the first place we went to was Newline for the comedy logo and the movie had originally started, was in development originally at Newline back in like 10 years ago or whatever. When we got them, then we went to the other studios and said well we got Newline. And then Fox Searchlight said yes which was really important. The only people who didn’t get on board were the MPAA because they wouldn’t give us their like you know “the following trailer has been approved by the” and that’s what I really wanted because I thought that would really give it authenticity. They even said you can’t have our same green color on the band, I don’t know they are very, very uptight.

Q: They own green?

BS: Yeah I know that’s what I said, I said they can’t copyright green.

Q: What about getting Tom Cruise to play a role that looks nothing like Tom. First of all how did you approach him, what was his initial response, was he on-board immediately, did you have to talk him into it.

BS: I had sent Tom the script because I just wanted to get his feedback on it because he’s a guy, he just loves movies and he’s really smart about movies and story and throughout the process he gave me a lot of feedback too because he’s just made a lot of movies and he’s pretty smart about it, so I didn’t even have the part of the studio executive it was his idea. He said making fun of the actors in this movie would be funny to have a studio guy. That gave me the idea that oh that would be really good to fill (a) story hole. Then he saw that part and I still didn’t think he was going to play the part, I said to him maybe you wanna play the agent? He was like no, I think the studio guy that would be fun to play, and he said (he) wanted to have really big hands, really big hands, like big hairy hands and I was like okay. That’s like a little weird. Then he got these hands made up and I was like wow this is funny and weird and then I thought maybe he could be bald too. And then we did a bunch of make-up tests and it sort of evolved. He started dancing in the make-up test one day and we were filming it and that’s how the dancing came. So it like happened sort of organically.

Q: These were shown over the internet as a filmmaker you want that to be a surprise but how do you feel when that stuff happens?

BS: On the internet? The Internet is ridiculous. I mean what are you gonna do? I’m surprised that everything doesn’t get out on the internet. You know you can’t do anything about it, you’re talking about the pictures of him in make up yeah. I mean it was unfortunate it’s just like I said it’s really hard to keep things a secret nowadays if you want to.

Q: Historically movies about Hollywood don’t do very well, any concerns about that or was that batted back at you when you showed the studio the script?

BS: I think at the end of the day that was sort of the challenge to try to make a movie that would be accessible to people on a level where it was just funny to them, you know. I feel like if a movie is funny then people will go see it. If they think that it’s a good movie. I think in this world you know people are so familiar with the movie making process and behind the scenes and all that, but I always wanted the movie to be more than just that, like it’s got action and it’s got comedy that comes from other places and it’s got this sort of element of satirizing more movies. I don’t know I felt like the movie, that was what was unique about the film it’s not just one thing.

Q: Ben, the family business notwithstanding when you were a little boy maybe 7 or 8 years old who inspired you, to inspire yourself or to be inspired or to believe in yourself specifically who was it and what did they say?

BS: I always sort of as a young kid loved movies and I loved watching movies and you know when my parents would be working I liked to go and see what they were doing. I remember my dad was in this movie the Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3, this great ‘70’s New York movie that I got to go on the set of a few times. I remember being a kid there watching that and thinking that was a really interesting process and loving movies as a kid. I wanted to start making movies so I got my, dad got me a Super8 camera, and he always supported that and he would get me editing stuff. He was really there sort of like saying, go ahead you wanna do this go for it.

Q: He was one of those dads that said son you can do this?

BS: Yeah definitely, he was really and he was always like volunteering to be in the movies and my whole family it was that sort of thing.

Q: Do you still have those movies?

BS: I do have them.

Q: Talking about things getting out there, I was really annoyed when I saw in one of the trades they are talking about what happened to Steve’s character that should be kept as a surprise.

BS: I agree.

Q: I wanted to ask you about the head.

BS: Yeah I don’t like to give that away either but you can’t help it when people write stuff.

Q: And is that one of those casting things when you say okay I need a head that looks real. 

BS: I cast Steve Coogan in his whole body, I like his whole body, but he was great. Okay.

Q: I wouldn’t want to give that away.

BS: I agree, I appreciate that. Yeah.