Tropic Thunder is the story of a war movie that goes way out of control, thanks in part to an inept director, but also due to the crazy actors involved. Ben Stiller plays one of the crazies, and he had to avoid becoming the inept director when he took the helm behind the scenes.
Ben Stiller on Tropic Thunder
"You just take it one day at a time," said Stiller. "I think actors appreciate when a director is in charge. I like when I walk out on set and a director says, 'I was thinking you might do this, this and this and I’m going to be the camera here and do that.' You don’t want the guy to go, 'Hey what do you think? MMM What should we do?' That’s horrible. Then you’re like who’s running the show here? It’s a balance and it was fun."
The high concept movie was so long in development, Stiller had a pretty strong game plan once production began. "For me, the movie was so long in the process of getting to the point where we were shooting, I was so excited to be doing it. I had lived with it for so long that the fact that we were actually making it was so much fun really. Over the course of eight or nine years a lot of drafts of the movie and real work on the drafts, [there were] times I’d never thought we’d make the movie and times I thought this was a good idea , but how do we figure we this thing out?"
Tropic Thunder
Tropic Thunder
Putting diva actors in a real war zone sounds funny, but there are lots of details one must figure out. "The idea was always there. The first act was always there and the idea for the second and third act was always there, but the actual articulation of it and trying to keep it going. When we finally got to the point where we were filming I was just so happy that we were doing it and then we had to cast that we had and then John Toll shooting it, making in Hawaii, for me it every day there were definitely times where there was a lot of pressure, but I felt like I had such a good group of people around me. When you’re working with people at that level you feel very supported. I always felt supported by the other actors and it was the kind of movie that I wanted to see."
They were even understanding of Stiller doing double duty. "Everybody was on board with it. The hard thing is when you’re acting and directing you want the actors to feel like they’re being directed. You don’t want them to feel like you’re so consumed with your own performance that you’re not there for them. That’s the balance sometimes, making them feel like they’re being directed and someone is watching their performance and giving them feedback."
Tropic Thunder
Tropic Thunder
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