Summary
- Robert Downey Jr. stayed in character as method actor Kirk Lazarus while peeing on set.
- Downey Jr. portrayed an Australian actor who alters his skin and only speaks in character’s voice.
- The hit film
Tropic Thunder
earned Downey Jr. an Oscar nod and over $195 million worldwide.
Robert Downey Jr. went a little too “method acting” when playing a method actor in the hit 2006 comedy, Tropic Thunder. In fact, he was so dedicated to staying in character that his co-star Danny McBride says he even peed in the style of his controvercial character Kirk Lazarus.
Release Date August 9, 2008
Runtime 106
Studio DreamWorks Pictures
Tagline Get some.
During an interview with GQ, McBride revealed a very funny story about hearing the recent Oscar-winner in full character while he relieved himself in the bathroom on the Tropic Thunder set.
“I guess during one of the takes they had left Downey’s mic on and so I’m sitting up there and I’m like, ‘Oh s—, I can hear what he’s saying. He was talking to people, and he was in character the whole time. And then I even watched him walk back to his trailer, and saw it from down there and he was talking to himself.”
In the film, Downey Jr. played Kirk Lazarus, an Australian method actor and five-time Academy Award winner who went the extra mile to portray Black Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris when he went through a pigmentation alteration to darken his skin. Lazarus doesn’t break character until he has recorded the DVD commentary and only speaks in his character’s voice. McBride goes on to explain that Downey Jr. even made up a song about going to the bathroom in character.
“I’m going to go drain the snake, I’m going to go drain the snake” en route to the facilities. “He made up a song about how was going to go piss in character for no one else’s benefit except for his own.”
Robert Downey Jr. Earned a Second Oscar Nomination for Tropic Thunder
Dreamworks
Tropic Thunder is a satirical action comedy directed by Ben Stiller and written by Stiller, Justin Theoroux, and Etan Cohen. The film features a group of prima donna actors making a movie about the Vietnam War, but things get very real when their frustrated director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) drops them in the middle of the jungle and dies in an accident. The entire series of unfortunate events leads to the actors using their acting skills to survive the real life danger they have been put in. The movie also stars Jack Black, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, and Tom Cruise, among others.
Related Robert Downey Jr. Says Tropic Thunder Controversy Due to Audience Understanding Being “Muddied” Roberty Downey Jr. has once again come to the defense of Tropic Thunder’s use of blackface in the context and spiirit in which the movie was made.
At the time of its release, Tropic Thunder earned solid reviews and big box office, grossing over $195 million globally on a $92 million budget. In a strange case of art imitating life, Downey Jr. was actually nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe Award for his performance. The actor would lose all of those awards to the late Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, but he recently took home his first Oscar for his turn in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Tropic Thunder
can currently be streamed on Peacock and Paramount+.
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