- Robert Downey Jr. told “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that he has no regrets over his “Tropic Thunder” blackface.
- Downey Jr. said: “90 percent of my black friends said it was great.”
- In the film, Downey Jr’s character Kirk Lazarus undergoes controversial skin-pigmentation to play a black man for a Vietnam war movie.
- Downey Jr. was nominated for an Oscar for his performance.
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Robert Downey Jr. said that he has no regrets over his “Tropic Thunder” blackface.
Speaking to Joe Rogan on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Downey said that “it was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie, and 90 percent of my black friends are like, ‘Dude, that was great.'”
When Rogan asked about the other 10 percent, Downey stated he couldn’t disagree with them but that he knew where his heart was.
“I think that it’s never an excuse to do something that is out of place and not of its time, but to me, it was just putting a blasting cap on – and by the way, I think ‘White Chicks’ came out pretty soon after that, and I was like, ‘I love that! That was great!”
Downey said that his mother had initially tried to talk him out of accepting the role - "My mother was horrified. She said, 'Bobby, I'm telling ya, I have a bad feeling about this.'"
The former Marvel actor also admitted he had doubts of his own.
"When Ben [Stiller, the film's director and Downey's co-star] called and said, 'Hey I'm doing this thing,' I think Sean Penn had passed on it or something like that - possibly wisely. 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?' And my heart is, a), 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."
In the movie, released in 2008, Downey plays a white Australian actor called Kirk Lazarus, who is a five-time Oscar-winner and renowned for being one of the best, most transformative method actors in the world who overly commits to his roles - a la Daniel Day-Lewis, Russell Crowe or Colin Farrell, the three actors Downey based his character on.
In the film, Lazarus undergoes a "controversial skin pigmentation procedure" in order to change his skin colour and enable him to play a black man named Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris in a Vietnam war film - hence the blackface. And Downey and director Stiller argue that the context of the movie is key in their use of blackface.
Speaking at the time of the film's release, Stiller told Empire magazine that "in the context of the film, he's playing a method actor who's gone to great lengths to play an African American. The movie is skewering actors and how they take themselves so seriously. Audiences that have seen it so far have totally embraced the character."
Now, however, Rogan offered that the film perhaps couldn't be made today - and Downey agreed he may not take such a role today, despite earning critical acclaim for his performance and many awards and nominations, including an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor.
"It's an interesting and necessary meditation on 'Where is the pendulum?'" Downey told Rogan.
"Why is the pendulum right? Where is the pendulum maybe cutting a little into what could be perceived as heart in the right place openness of its time?"
Watch the full interview below:
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