Can you guess the African American in the photograph above? It is none other than Robert Downey Jr. playing Kirk Lazarus, a very serious Oscar-winning actor cast in the most expensive Vietnam war epic ever filmed. The problem is “Kirk’s” character was originally written to be black. So he decided to dye his skin…. Now is this funny? Mean? Depends on who you ask. Now I’ll give you one guess on who could cowrite and direct a soon to be ‘comic masterpiece’. You guessed it, Ben Stiller who will also be starring with Jack Black and RDJr in the movie described as a modern day Apocalypse Now.
Paramount plans to debut the trailer online March 17.
In one of Downey’s scenes, he tries to bond with a real African-American castmate by quoting the theme song from The Jeffersons. Downey is confident he never crossed the line. ”At the end of the day, it’s always about how well you commit to the character,” he says. ”I dove in with both feet. If I didn’t feel it was morally sound, or that it would be easily misinterpreted that I’m just C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man, I would’ve stayed home.”
