Get the latest gossip
Robert Downey Jr. Stands By ‘Tropic Thunder’ for ‘Railing Against Tropes That Aren’t Right’: ‘Things Have Gotten Very Muddled’ With Audiences
Robert Downey Jr. draws a line between "All in the Family" and "Tropic Thunder."
Robert Downey Jr. has long defended his role in “ Tropic Thunder,” the 2008 comedy from director Ben Stiller that cast the “Iron Man” star as an egotistical Australian thespian who takes Method acting to an extreme by undergoing “pigmentation alteration” surgery to darken his skin in order to play a Black solider in a war movie. During an appearance on Rob Lowe’s “Literally!” podcast while on his “Oppenheimer” awards campaign trail, Downey Jr. drew a line between “Tropic Thunder” and Norman Lear’s iconic sitcom “All in the Family.” He said both works shine a light on “tropes that are not right and had been perpetuated for too long” and faced criticism from those who weren’t seeing the bigger picture. Downey Jr. said at the time that while he also had a bad feeling about “Tropic Thunder” and the potential backlash it could generate, he still thought to himself: “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.”
Or read this on Variety
