Mar 7, 2008 9:05 pm US/Eastern
Robert Downey Jr. Plays Black Man In New Film
LOS ANGELES (AP) ―
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Robert Downey Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, an over-the-top Australian-born method actor who has gone to extremes to get into character, in the movie "Tropic Thunder."
Merie Weismiller Wallace
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Jack Black (Jeff Portnoy), far left, Robert Downey Jr. (Kirk Lazarus), center, and Ben Stiller (Tugg Speedman) appear in the movie "Tropic Thunder."
Merie Weismiller Wallace
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Actor Robert Downey Jr. (File)
Mark Davis/Getty Images
In "Tropic Thunder," one of three summer films featuring Robert Downey Jr., the actor appears on screen as a black man.
Downey Jr. plays overly committed actor Kirk Lazarus, a white man cast to play a black soldier in a satire of the performing profession. The film also stars Jack Black and Ben Stiller, who co-wrote, directed and produced it.
"If it's done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago," Downey told Entertainment Weekly magazine. "If you don't do it right, we're going to hell."
Stiller said he was "trying to push it as far as you can within reality," with the intent of satirizing over-the-top actors, not African-Americans.
"I had no idea how people would respond to it," Stiller told the magazine. But at a recent screening, black viewers liked the film, he said.
Downey explained that he kept the character from becoming a caricature because he "dove in with both feet."
"If I didn't feel it was morally sound," he said, "or that it would be easily misinterpreted that I'm just C. Thomas Howell in ("Soul Man"), I would've stayed home."
Paramount is set to release "Tropic Thunder" Aug. 15.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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