Ben Stiller has opened up about the controversy surrounding Tropic Thunder, stating that the film would have little chance of getting made today.
The satirical action comedy - which was directed by Ben Stiller - follows the story of a group of actors who were shooting a big-budget war movie and were forced to become the soldiers they were portraying.
Robert Downey Jr. played a character named Kirk Lazarus, a man that saw him physically turn himself from a white man to a Black man - a more common name for the process is "blackface".
The flick, which also starred Jay Baruchel, Jack Black, and Tom Cruise, was a hit at the box office, ranking in an impressive $195.7 million, and won the Critics Choice Movie Award for Best Comedy in 2009.
Over the years, Stiller, and Downey Jr. have stood by the movie, which was slammed for numerous reasons including the depiction of disabled people and minority groups, but more specifically Downey Jr, a non-black performer, using theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of a Black person.
Stiller spoke out about the controversial movie in a recently published interview with Collider, saying that "edgier comedy is just harder to do" in today's climate.
"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," he said.
The filmmaker stated that 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".
Stiller then noted that Tropic Thunder was satirizing actors who engage in insensitive and offensive stereotypes.
“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," he explained. “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."
Back in 2020, the Iron Man star opened up about the backlash during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
"When Ben called and said, 'Hey I’m doing this thing' - you know I think Sean Penn had passed on it or something. Possibly wisely. And I thought, 'Yeah, I’ll do that and I’ll do that after Iron Man,'" Downey Jr. said. "Then I started thinking, 'This is a terrible idea, wait a minute.' Then I thought, 'Well hold on dude, get real here, where is your heart?'
"My heart is... I get to be black for a summer in my mind, so there’s something in it for me. The other thing is, I get to hold up to nature the insane self-involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do on occasion, just my opinion," he added.
The Marvel star went on to claim that "90 percent of [his] Black friends" referred to the movie as "great," adding: "[Ben Stiller] knew exactly what the vision for this was, he executed it, it was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie."