Downey used this unique opportunity - which will likely never present itself again - to do a little introspection. "I'd be in makeup for a couple hours and they'd be setting up some big shot or whatever. I'd go back to my trailer and I'd close the door and I would lock it. I'd just look at myself in the mirror and I would talk to myself as the character and I swear to God, it was one of the most therapeutic [moments]. I'd look at myself and just be like, 'You beautiful, man.' And I would actually have this strange transcendent experience."
"It could have maybe happened in other ways, like I've done other special effects jobs. Once I was covered in hair. That was different. That was like I was making peace with my beast, whatever, but this was an American guy who's an actor who's been raised in seeing the film industry become much more integrated, still living in an urban city that is largely, I'm realizing, segregated in a country that is verging on an opportunity of taking big leaps or taking steps to the side or backward. Meanwhile, I'm an actor for hire and I make faces for cash and chicken, and I thought that this job could be really cool and funny and interested," explained Downey. "I loved it. Then it had to end because it had to end because it would be inappropriate if I was still black when the movie was over."
But playing an Australian actor playing an African-American character meant he had a fine comedy line to walk. Push it too far and wouldn't be funny. "I just know moment to moment, like we'd done this and Ben said, 'What do you think of this?' And I said, 'I think it's funny and entertaining, and if it's done right it's not offensive. But I don't know if the risk outweighs the reward,' because the reward is that you make a comedy that people like and the risk is something so much more far reaching than that. But then I look at the whole movie is just so generally offensive, particularly… I'll just start out with myself. The idea that someone's 'my process', and me when I think of myself as an artist and then I realize really all I'm doing is dressing up and running around or whatever."
There's a little bit of a lot of actors in Kirk Lazarus, according to Downey. "When I was thinking about Kirk Lazarus, I was thinking about Colin Farrell. Particularly when I was standing out on the balcony with my d--k out and I also wanted to have a love child in my hand and a bottle. I just wanted this thing like, 'How dare you look at this baby that I have with this woman you've never met?' That was my idea. But then I also love Daniel Day- Lewis a whole bunch and I've seen him when his beard was grown out and he was wearing weird sweaters and I was like, 'That guy is crazy cool.' And Russell Crowe is nuts and awesome and so gifted. So I wasn't really thinking about any of them. Just like when I was thinking about Lincoln Osiris, it's not like I picked a guy and said, 'Oh, that's who I'm going to…' I just thought more the energy of it. I think you get more energy if you're not specific."
Asked how he prepared for the role, Downey replied, "[There] were two things. One is I said at one point, I didn't want to do this. I said at one point, 'If he goes too far, it's good provided Brandon [T. Jackson who plays] Alpa Chino, gets to pull up the slack and say, 'Dude, you are so stereotyping yourself right now that I'm embarrassed for you and you wouldn't last a second in my neighborhood type thing.'' We shot versions of that. Before that I was thinking, and we were working on the scene, I said, 'I think if my only reference is the guy that I'm playing, the white guy, for real black culture is a TV show, it shows that A) now I have never had any business even saying I understand the black experience because all I know is the theme song to a show.' So Ben was like, 'Wait, wait, wait, wait. You want to what? All right, sing it, sing it, sing it.' So I said, 'No, I wouldn't sing it. I would say it, like when we're in an embrace and he tries to hit me and I slap him.'"
"Originally, Brandon helped us a lot with these scenes. He was like, 'You can't call me, I can call you that, you can't call me.' And I was like, 'I know.' He goes, 'Well, that's easy. Just take your name off there and put it here.' But if we had shot it a different way…you know what I mean? There's so many ways that in the blink of an eye it could have been wrong."
Ben Stiller not only directed Tropic Thunder but also co-wrote the screenplay, produced it, and, of course, stars in it as an action superstar whose fame is fading. Downey recalled what it was like to work with Stiller when he was wearing his director hat: "Even just the first day of shooting, everybody went home and said, 'He's a monster. This is going to be absolutely impossible.' And then we realized as we were going along that what he is is he's a leader. And he is an artist and he's probably as capable in every single department that he was hiring people to be heads of department as the heads of department he had hired them to be. In other words, he probably could have shot this movie. He probably could have costume designed and production designed the movie. He probably could have done the transportation."
