So has screenwriting been monopolizing your time over acting lately?
I try and balance, but it’s been pretty heavy the last year and half. Now I’m going to step out and start doing some other stuff, some acting. But I’m looking to make it a more balanced thing.
How much of Tropic Thunder was on the page, and how much was improv?
It was a work in progress the whole entire time we were
doing it. Coming up with the script to rehearsals to once we cast then
post-table read – it was kind of a continuingly evolving thing. And then, of
course, on the day things would happen and people would draw on their own
little flares. Their own particular
things they wanted to try out. And then Ben [Stiller] would sort of shepherd them through
that. But it was pretty tacked down, but then occasionally he’d put the camera
on and just let whatever actor just go. [Robert] Downey did amazing things at times, as
did Jack [Black] and Ben …it was pretty screwed down, but at the same time the actors
had a lot of freedom to sort of play around in it.
Did the characters change from the early drafts after you settled on the cast?
They didn’t change as much as you might think. They’ve pretty much stayed the same, but again they evolved over the course of the time we were shooting. The spirit of each of those characters was pretty consistent from when we wrote it to the time we finished shooting.
People started jumping all over Downey in blackface and “the full retard” speech even before seeing the jokes in context – did that surprise you?
Yeah, weirdly no one really jumped on the Robert Downey thing too much – a couple of people did really early on before they knew what the joke was. But then the full retard scene, the Special Olympics people really jumped on that hard and just refused to let go of it. I sort of think it was more for their own benefit than to try and damage our movie. But I don’t know. They never really saw it in context, so they’ll carry on believing it was a joke aimed at them. I thought it was a very smart, well done joke. But I’m partial.
How did you get involved in writing Iron Man 2?
Robert brought me over to meet with them and we just kind of
clicked. It seemed like it would be a good fit so, yeah, I just started working
with them. It was a very fortuitous,
wonderful thing. It’s a really fun project so far.
Have you dug in completely on that, or is it still in the planning stages?
We’ve dug pretty far in, yeah. I just got back from London, where I was with Robert and Kevin Feige who was over there. We had a great time. It’s a very collaborative environment at Marvel. And very artist-friendly.
Can you tell me anything at all?
I can’t! I’m so excited to, but I honestly can’t. In the movie, Robert will be playing Iron Man…[laughs]
Did you get caught up at all in the Don Cheadle/Terrence Howard affair?
I never even met Terrence. But, yeah, that was a whole sort of separate…that’s way above my pay grade. [laughs] But they sorted all that out.
Were you a fan of Iron Man, or even of comics in general before this gig?
Yeah, I’m a big fan of alt comics, sort of coming up during
the early 90s, and I was also a big fan of Iron Man and, of course, Batman. Iron Man was actually the one doll
that I owned. Back when he was still wearing sort of a silk/polyester suit.
There’s something about him that I’ve always cottoned to because he’s the most
human of them all. He’s not very stoic, he’s flawed. I like him for that.
Do you feel like you’re coming in at the best part – the groundwork has been laid, you can now jump in and have some fun?
Yeah – I think it’s a Catch-22 no matter which part you do. Because a part of you is like, "Wouldn’t it be cool to just do the origin?" Origin stories, I think, are a lot of fun. They’re always fun to read. It would be fun to tinker around with creating one. But, obviously, the way they ended Part 1, it’s a whole new ball game now as far as this genre is concerned. Creating a hero who lives in the world – it’s a fun challenge. We have to create a more full world for him to run around in. I’m really liking it.
Since Marvel is intent on tying these movies together, is what you’re writing going to affect what happens in The Avengers movie? Are you involved in that at all?
No, no, no. It’s very one day at a time. I have no input on
the other movies. But that’s where I think Kevin Feige is so smart. He’s in all
the rooms, in all the meetings. I think he’s the connective tissue between the
movies. So if he hears something that’s going on in one meeting, he might want
to run it to the endzone in our meeting. But he never comes in and says, "This
is what those guys are doing, I want this…" It’s never like that. It’s more like,
"That could be cool if… Maybe think about this..."
So he doesn’t pop his head in and go, "Your villain is Loki. Don’t ask me why. Just do it."
[laughs] Exactly. No, he doesn’t do anything like that. He
lets us work out what our movie’s about, and what it’ suppose to be about. And then he just puts his shoulder behind what
we’re doing. He’s also a genius. He knows this genre and these characters and
his catalogue better than anybody I’ve ever met. He knows the gig better than
anybody.
Tropic Thunder is on DVD and Blu-Ray now. Read our review if you don't believe us.