Paramount Pictures
Tropic Thunder star and director Ben Stiller has confirmed what many movie fans have long believed: there’s no way that the hit 2008 comedy could have been made today. According to Stiller, “edgier comedy is just harder” to do in this era.
In a a recent interview, Ben Stiller — gearing up for season two of his hit AppleTV+ series Severance, which returns in January — admitted that he’s not sure he would “venture” to make Tropic Thunder in today’s environment.
Tropic Thunder told the story of a group of egomaniacal actors who get caught up in real danger while filming their Vietnam war movie. The film infamously featured Robert Downey Jr’s as Kirk Lazarus, an Australian method actor who undergoes “pigmentation alteration” in order to do Blackface for the film.
While the character was intended to be a satirization and take down of Blackface, younger audiences who’ve recently discovered the movie seem to miss that point entirely, given further credence to Stiller’s argument.
“Obviously, in this environment, edgier comedy is just harder to do,” Stiller told Collider. “Definitely not at the scale we made it at, too, in terms of the economics of the business. 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.”
“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. 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,” he continued.
Stiller and Downey Jr. starred in Tropic Thunder alongside Jack Black, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, Steve Coogan, Nick Nolte, Danny McBride, Matthew McConaughey, Bill Hader, and Tom Cruise. Stiller co-wrote and directed the film, which grossed just over $195 million at the global box office.