Here’s one from the “Are You Sure That’s a Good Idea?” department. Entertainment Weekly has our first look at Tropic Thunder, an action-comedy co-written and directed by Ben Stiller, who also stars as an actor prepping for a role in a war movie. According to the report, “when the film's director (Steve Coogan) and writer (Nick Nolte) get fed up with their prima donna cast, they drop them into the jungle to fend for themselves. The actors think they're doing some sort of full-immersion filmmaking, but the danger they're in is very real.”
So far, so…well, not so tantalizing. But the rest of the casting news is worthy of a raised eyebrow, at least. It’s not co-star Jack Black that has folks all a-twitter; he plays “a comedian known for performing multiple roles in a single film — his latest is called The Fatties: Fart 2,” which sounds par for the course. Rather, it’s the actor playing “Kirk Lazarus, a very serious Oscar-winning actor cast in the most expensive Vietnam War film ever. Problem is, Lazarus's character, Sgt. Osiris, was originally written as black. So Lazarus decides to dye his skin and play Osiris, um, authentically.” It’s none other than Robert Downey, Jr.
Sounds dicey, but Downey doesn’t seem worried. ''At the end of the day, it's always about how well you commit to the character,'' he says. ''I dove in with both feet. If I didn't feel it was morally sound, or that it would be easily misinterpreted that I'm just C. Thomas Howell in [Soul Man], I would've stayed home.''
Poor C. Thomas Howell. He’ll just never hear the end of it, will he?