Paramount Pictures
Before he was the king of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Robert Downey Jr. was something of an unknown quantity, as his massive acting talent had been recently overshadowed by his shambolic and drug-fueled personal life.
But in the year 2008, RDJ’s epic comeback began, as he helped launch the MCU with Iron Man. Given that the role would go on to define his career — and, essentially, the future of blockbuster filmmaking — Downey Jr’s performance as Tony Stark is largely credited with turning his career around.
People forget, though, that just months after Iron Man, Downey Jr starred in another critically-acclaimed blockbuster, the satirical action-comedy Tropic Thunder.
In the now-iconic role of Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus, Downey Jr. famously performed the film in blackface, as the character — for the movie within the movie — had an obviously controversial “pigmentation alteration” surgery to darken his complexion for his portrayal of African America Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris.
It was a wild role that Downey Jr. certainly could not get away with in today’s society, but to his credit, he absolutely pulled it off, as the character of Kirk Lazarus was widely considered to be an effective criticism of, as described by Downey Jr, “the insane self-involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do.”
In fact, according to the actor himself, the Kirk Lazarus character was well-received by “90% of [his] black friends.”
“My mother was horrified,” Downey Jr. said on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast. “‘Bobby, I’m telling ya, I have a bad feeling about this.’ I was like, ‘Yeah me too, mom.’ When Ben called and said, ‘Hey I’m doing this thing’ – you know I think Sean Penn had passed on it or something. Possibly wisely. And I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that and I’ll do that after Iron Man.’ Then 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? My heart is…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.”
“[Ben] knew exactly what the vision for this was, he executed it, it was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie,” Downey Jr. continued. “And 90 per cent of my black friends were like, ‘Dude, that was great.’ I can’t disagree with [the other 10 per cent], but I know where my heart lies. I think that it’s never an excuse to do something that’s out of place and out of its time, but to me it blasted the cap on [the issue]. I think having a moral psychology is job one. Sometimes, you just gotta go, ‘Yeah I effed up.’ In my defense, ‘Tropic Thunder’ is about how wrong [blackface] is, so I take exception.” [Joe Rogan Experience via IndieWire]
Downey Jr’s performance received acclaim from both critics and the movie-going public, as he was nominated for various awards, including Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards.
You can check out Rogan’s full interview with the acting legend here:
***
Eric is a New York City-based writer who still isn’t quite sure how he’s allowed to have this much fun for a living and will tell anyone who listens that Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. Follow him on Twitter @eric_ital for movie and soccer takes or contact him eric@brobible.com