Robert Downey Jr doesn't regret wearing blackface in 'Tropic Thunder': 'My black friends thought it was great'
After a colorful Marvel career playing Iron Man and then playing Dr. Dolittle alongside a menagerie of cheerful talking animals, Robert Downey Jr. made an appearance on the famous podcast, 'The Joe Rogan Experience'.
Rogan, a renowned UFC commentator and former pro mixed martial artist, discussed with the Hollywood megastar an old role of his in Ben Stiller's 'Tropic Thunder'. His character—Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus — sparked controversy after being shown to have undergone a “pigmentation alteration” procedure to play a black character.
Rogan asked Downey Jr. if he would accept the controversial role today.
"When Ben called and said 'hey I'm doing this thing,' I think Sean Penn had passed on it or something like that—possibly wisely," the Avengers star began. "And I thought, 'Yeah… I'll do that after Iron Man.' And 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?' And my heart is, a), 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," Robert explained.
Robert went on to say Ben was a "master artist and director" who "knew exactly what the vision for this was."
"It was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie, and 90 percent of my black friends are like, 'Dude, that was great,'" he said.
Rogan then asked, "What about the other 10 percent?"
"You know, I can't disagree with them—but I know where my heart was," Downey asserted. "And I think that it's never an excuse to do something that is out of place and not of its time, but to me it was just putting a, it was a blasting cap on—and by the way, I think White Chicks came out pretty soon after that, and I was like, 'I love that! That was great!'"
Rogan then noted how it was taboo to do a blackface today. "It's an interesting and necessary meditation on, 'Where is the pendulum?'" Downey responded. "Why is the pendulum right? Where is the pendulum may be cutting a little into what could be perceived as heart in the right place openness of its time?" he asked.
"But again, I mean, you know, there's a morality clause here on this planet," Downey continued. "And it's a big price to pay, and I think having a moral psychology is job one. So sometimes you've just gotta go, 'Yeah, I effed up.' Again, not in my defense, but Tropic Thunder was about how wrong that is. So I take exception."
Rogan also asked if anyone close to Robert had tried to talk him out of playing the character, to which he admitted how his mother was "horrified."
"'Bobby, I'm telling ya, I have a bad feeling about this.' I was like, 'Yeah me too, mom,'" he recalled.
Interestingly, RDJ had received critical acclaim for his stunning performance in the movie. He was nominated in the Supporting Actor category at the biggest award shows, including Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Screen Actors Guild Awards. However, Heath Ledger beat him in all the nominations for his pathbreaking performance as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Knight'.