Ben Stiller's Days of Thunder

Reluctant funnyman still doing his own thing with Tropic Thunder

by Timothy Rhys | Published August 14, 2008

(Page 2)

TR: You’ve done this so many times now—is it still tough to trust your own instincts about what an audience wants?

BS: Well, you have to trust yourself, too. I mean, you want to be informed but you also have to go with what you thought was funny in the beginning, during the writing process. Otherwise there’s no reason to do it.

TR: I’m not sure if I’ve ever laughed so hard just reading about a movie as I did with this one.

BS: Really?

TR: Yeah. Isn’t it your character who wants to adopt an Asian baby but wonders if all the good ones are taken?

BS: Yes, that was me. (laughs)

TR: How did you get the idea for this movie?

BS: Well, I got the idea way back in 1987. At that time all these Vietnam movies were being made and I had a small part in Empire of the Sun, a war movie. I auditioned for Platoon, too. It seemed like everybody I knew was in one of these movies—all my actor friends were going to fake boot camps. And there was a time when everybody was going, “Wow, I had the most incredible, life-changing experience by going off and doing this war movie.” So at that point I was doing a sketch show and I thought this could be a funny little short about actors who go off and do Vietnam War movies and come back and think they’re going to be famous and they’re not. Sort of like vets who went off to war and then were forgotten. We’d call it “Post-Platoon Syndrome.” It was twisted.

Stuart and I would always throw the idea around, but it was such a big movie and such a big deal to get it off the ground… The one-liner is something like, “Real actors go out into the jungle with their fake guns and get caught up with real drug runners.” We sort of had to figure out what the second and third acts were. It was hard to make that work.

TR: It’s of course politically incorrect in many ways.

BS: Yeah, definitely.

TR: Was that part of the appeal for you?

BS: No, not at all. I obviously didn’t want to make a movie that was making fun of war. Or soldiers. The idea was to make fun of actors who go off to make war movies and think they’ve had some kind of real experience based on that. Basically the idea is how we [actors] take ourselves a little too seriously… some more than others. And that’s just the nature of being an actor—you’re just this self-involved thing. I think even the best of actors have to be that way because that’s what it’s about.
So we took some of these archetypes (Jack Black’s character, for instance—you look at [Chris] Farley and [John] Belushi and some of these funny guys who had drug problems and some made it and some didn’t), and they’re not obvious places for humor, but in this satirical idea of the movie we could do it. We could take the action guy who’s not doing great and the hip-hop guy who wants to be an actor because it seems like if you’re a rapper you can be an actor, too… For the Robert Downey Jr. character, Kirk, the idea is that he’s the most respected actor of his generation, he’s one of these incredible actors like Daniel Day-Lewis or Sean Penn, these guys who we all look at and understand that the commitment level is so unimaginable… So what if a guy like that decides to play an African-American?

Read Tim Rhys’ full interview with Ben Stiller, in MovieMaker Magazine’s Summer 2008 issue, on newsstands now. If you’re not already a subscriber, sign up today at the discounted rate of $9.95 for one year—available to MovieMaker.com readers only at https://www.moviemaker.com/subscribe/online_only.

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TAGS anne meara carl yastrzemski chris farley christine taylor daniel day-lewis dreamworks empire of the sun greg hayden jacqueline knapp jerry stiller john belushi matthew mcconaughey newsweek nick nolte permanent midnight platoon red hour films rocky sean penn sharon chatten steve mcqueen stuart cornfeld sylvester stallone teddy roosevelt tenacious d in the pick of destiny the pursuit of happyness the taking of pelham one two three triborough bridge vietnam movies

COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by fairings on 8/26/08 at 7:47 pm

I love Ben Stiller… I’m sure your son enjoyed the experience of being near Stiller. I will definitely watch this film.

Comment by Junior Cricket Bats on 10/10/08 at 1:00 pm

Not what I was expecting at all. Great performances by Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr and Jack Black. Would recomend this to anyone

Comment by free g1 on 12/17/08 at 11:41 am

I am a huge fan of ben stiller, but not this movie.

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Comment by Drew on 7/01/09 at 3:53 am

Ben Stiller used to be one of my favorite actors but lately, he is lamer and lamer..or he was like that all the time and I just grew older..
who knows…

Comment by Cricket Supplies on 11/23/09 at 11:04 am

A great movie. Very good comedy with Ben Stiller as always.

Comment by John on 12/05/09 at 11:45 am

Robert Downey Jr. rocked in Tropic Thunder.

Comment by electronic income tax filing on 1/09/10 at 6:23 am

I know how to delete accounts-I just can’t delete the last one. Once I press triangle to delete the last account, the only option it gives me is information. I need to delete all accounts to send in the the PS3.
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Comment by Steve on 5/31/10 at 3:31 pm

I think Tropic Thunder is a great movie.  I know it got some bad publicity for some of the terms used but it was very well written and it was impressive on the well known actors he got into the movie.  I did not see it in a theater but on On Demand and I then talked about it for days.  So much that two friends got me the DVD for my birthday.  I let people borrow my spare because I don’t think that many of people saw it nor heard how great it was. 

I don’t know much about Ben, this is the first article I read about him but I hope he comes out with more movies that are as good as Tropic Thunder.

Comment by Cricket Bats on 10/28/11 at 4:01 am

Loved this movie, thought is was real at first lol

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