Over the past decade, actor Justin Theroux has long been a quiet player on the indie film scene, adding his slightly whiny charm to movies like The Baxter, Broken English, and Mulholland Drive. Lately, though, he's been even more accomplished behind the scenes, directing last year's Dedication starring Billy Crudup, being asked to write the upcoming sequel to Iron Man (!), and collaborating on the script for this week's Tropic Thunder with Ben Stiller and Etan Cohen. The other day, Theroux spoke to Vulture about war moves, the Simple Jack controversy, and why Iron Man 2 won't be anything like The Dark Knight.
So the movie is pretty over-the-top. How did you and Ben Stiller decide when to draw the line between funny and�
Heeeere we go. I know what's coming. [Laughing] I can see ten minutes into the future!
Well � I was going to say, between the funny and the totally ridiculous.
Neither he nor I are fans of cruel humor. Like the kind of humor that just makes people feel shitty. We're very careful when we tee up our subject, which was Hollywood and actors here. So obviously Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), as sort of the most risqu� character, was the one we were most careful with. There's nothing funny about African-American jokes, but there's something very funny about actors playing African-Americans when they're white. We wanted to do a send-up of those Method actors who become anorexic and dysmorphic when they get parts, you know, live the role, pluck bald spots out of their hair.
Have you met rafts of crazy Method actors?
Yeah, and weirdly, without naming names, the most receive been in television, which is the most ironic thing ever. Television actors are ever striving to be a little more on point, so there would be times when I'd be doing, like, your modal show, and there'd be people in character at lunch, and you'd be like, "Knock it off! Cut the comedy! It's really just a cop show. It's not going to change the mankind if you break fictional character at the craft-service table."
Where did the idea for Downey's lineament come from?
Believe it or not, all the characters came first from watching war movies. That was the blueprint. In war movies, specially lesser war movies, there's these horrifying stereotypes of, like, the fat guy cable who's besides slow and gets everyone killed, and the southerly guy named Dixie, and the 19-year-old black kid from Detroit, and they all take terrible names like Fats or Motown, or the Jewish kid's named � Brooklyn! There's this perfect cross section of our fightin' boys! So that was a first footmark � world Health Organization would be the funniest group to exploit? And then we also felt like, well, what's the worst cast we could possibly come up with to fill those roles? We knew any recreant studio head would want an Oscar winner, an action star with major box-office clout, the funniness gross-out guy, the rapper.
Nick Nolte is genuinely the perfect guy for his persona � did you invariably have him in judgement for it?
Oh, totally, it was like, "Wouldn't it be great if we could receive Nolte for this?" And same thing with the cinematographer in reality, John Toll, who did fuckin' Thin Red Line. We were having a meeting about shooting the thing and were like, "Why don't we have John Toll, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha." And then we did come John Toll!
Of the fake movies in Tropic Thunder, do you think a Hollywood studio would really make any of them?
I think candidly they'd make all of them. That was the joke � it's release to be really suspect when they make all these movies for material. If it was tending a good writer and director, all these movies could be made. What's so funny is that they're really not all that far from the truth.
Okay � I now have to ask around Simple Jack �
God bless him. Well, that came out of the same place the others movies came from � what length actors testament go to to get critical clap or comedic credibility or whatever. So we mentation about having a determine piece built around an actor who's failing in his vocation and thinking if he did a movie more or less a mentally impaired guy rope he'd get ahead an Oscar and breathe new lifetime into his career. And he does it clumsily and terribly � non unlike realism, I mightiness add. There are MANY films we're lampooning at that place, and TV movies included, just a bunch of movies we found completely outrageous.
The actors in the movie are all pretty much idiots. How stupid are actors in real life?
In real life? I mean, for the most part, actors, especially the ones I like � my friiiends � are great, simply there are actors world Health Organization actually startle to believe they're as intelligent as the scripts they're mimicking. And sometimes that's unfeigned. But there are also actors wHO should ne'er go cancelled book. There are mess of actors who are brilliant the great unwashed, and plentifulness who should not be allowed on talk shows.
You're composition Iron Man 2, right? Given the success of The Dark Knight, ar you tempted to make it darker than the original?
There's no temptation any. You know, I tremulously went and watched The Dark Knight myself, merely it's a totally different movie, like, you know that Tom Cruise motion-picture show where he played the race-car device driver? What was that picture show called � anyway. It's like comparing that pic to Talladega Nights � it's 2 totally unlike animals. We have a leading man who tin can sort of relish being a computer-aided design, and that's a fun character to write for. We feel like we're in the clear. �Rebecca Milzoff
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