50 Fun Facts About Tropic Thunder

Who directed Tropic Thunder?

He also co-wrote it with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen and stars as Tugg Speedman.

The director came up with the premise while acting in a small role in which 1987 Spielberg film?

He was struck by actors who came back from war-film boot camps acting as if they had really served.

What is the name of the fading action-star character played by the director?

His Scorcher franchise once made him the highest-grossing action star ever, before Simple Jack.

Tugg's fake trailer at the start of the film is for which sequel?

It spoofs long-running summer blockbuster franchises.

What is the title of Tugg's box-office bomb in which he played a farm boy who can talk to animals?

The Flaming Dragon gang turn out to be its biggest fans and make him perform it several times a day.

Robert Downey Jr.'s Kirk Lazarus is a method actor of what nationality?

The script made him Irish until Downey said he could improvise better as an Australian, as he had in Natural Born Killers.

How many Academy Awards has Kirk Lazarus supposedly won?

He refuses to break character until he has recorded the DVD commentary.

What is the name of the Black character Lazarus plays in the film-within-a-film?

Downey recorded the real DVD commentary in character as Osiris.

Downey said he modeled Lazarus on which three actors?

He said his first reaction to the pitch was 'This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard!'

Lazarus's fake trailer, Satan's Alley, is about two gay monks in a monastery in which country?

Tobey Maguire, playing the other monk, had only two hours on set to shoot it.

Which actor cameos as the other monk in Satan's Alley?

Downey saw it as karmic payoff for their one-night-stand scene in Wonder Boys.

Jack Black's Jeff Portnoy is famous for which family comedy franchise?

The Fatties: Fart 2 trailer spoofs Eddie Murphy playing every member of a family.

Which character's name is a pun on Al Pacino?

Brandon T. Jackson plays the closeted rapper; Kevin Hart turned the part down.

What is the name of the energy drink the rapper character promotes, which Paramount actually sold?

His candy bar was called Bust-A-Nut; the drink was sold in college bookstores and on Amazon.

Which comedian turned down the rapper role because he did not want to play a gay character?

Brandon T. Jackson took the part instead.

Kevin Sandusky, played by Jay Baruchel, is the only actor who did what?

He plays a soldier called Brooklyn and is the group's straight man.

Nick Nolte's Four Leaf Tayback claims to have lost what in Vietnam?

He actually served in the Coast Guard sanitation department and never left the United States.

Where did Four Leaf really serve, as he confesses to Cody?

He wrote the 'memoir' as a tribute.

How does director Damien Cockburn die?

Tugg assumes he faked it to get better performances, and keeps 'acting'.

Steve Coogan's director character was partly inspired by which real director's Island of Dr. Moreau experience?

Stanley was fired days into that 1996 shoot with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando.

What is the name of the heroin-producing gang the actors stumble into?

They operate in the Golden Triangle and are led by a 12-year-old.

How old is Tran, the gang's leader?

The character was compared to Johnny and Luther Htoo, the child leaders of God's Army.

What contractual perk does Tugg's agent fight Les Grossman over?

Rick later saves everyone by throwing a TiVo box into the path of an RPG.

What does Les Grossman give Tugg's agent to keep him quiet about abandoning Tugg?

Grossman would rather collect the life insurance than pay a ransom.

Who plays Rick 'The Pecker' Peck?

Cruise was first slated for the part, then Owen Wilson, who dropped out in 2007.

Which actor was originally cast as the agent before dropping out after a personal crisis?

He withdrew after his August 2007 suicide attempt.

Tom Cruise was originally going to cameo as which character before Les Grossman was created?

Cruise himself suggested adding a studio-head character.

Which two physical touches were Cruise's own idea for Les Grossman?

He also wore a fatsuit and bald cap; leaked photos in 2007 prompted lawsuit threats.

Some insiders believe Les Grossman is loosely based on which famously volatile producer?

Rudin was notorious for his temper and treatment of assistants.

Which Ludacris song plays over Grossman's end-credits dance?

Earlier in the film he dances to Flo Rida's 'Low'.

Which actor was originally cast as the fading action star, with the director as the agent?

Etan Cohen created Kirk Lazarus to lampoon extreme method actors.

Which legendary makeup artist designed Downey's Lincoln Osiris look?

Application took one and a half to two hours, with an artist working from each side of his face.

On which Hawaiian island was Tropic Thunder mostly filmed?

Stiller has a home there; the shoot was the largest in the island's history and pumped $60 million into the local economy.

How many weeks did principal photography on the island last?

Two ground units and an aerial unit shot at seven locations across the island.

The opening napalm explosion used how much gasoline and diesel?

The 1.25-second blast was done once, filmed by twelve cameras, and threw a mushroom cloud 350 feet up.

Which actor was the only one physically present in the shot of the big opening explosion?

Everyone else was added digitally for safety.

Cody Underwood's reputation as a pyromaniac stems from nearly blinding which Freaky Friday actress?

He is also the film's helicopter pilot.

What was the title of the fake behind-the-scenes mockumentary released as promotion?

It parodies Hearts of Darkness, with Justin Theroux as documentarian Jan Jürgen.

Which promo website did DreamWorks pull in 2008 after protests from disability advocates?

More than 20 groups including the Special Olympics objected; the film itself was not re-edited.

How many consecutive weekends did the film hold the number one spot at the North American box office?

It was only the second film of 2008 to manage more than two, after The Dark Knight.

Roughly how much did Tropic Thunder gross worldwide?

Its opening weekend of $25.8 million beat Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Robert Downey Jr. earned an Academy Award nomination for the film in which category?

He was also nominated at the BAFTAs, SAG Awards and Golden Globes, where Cruise was nominated too.

Who composed the film's score?

AllMusic called it 'an affectionate and knowing satire of the history of Hollywood action movie music'.

Cruise reprised Les Grossman at which 2010 event, sparking spin-off talk?

A spin-off script by Michael Bacall was announced; Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie were still developing it in 2022.

Which US Marine Corps base hosted a screening for over a thousand service members before release?

Stiller, Downey and Black arrived by helicopter and Humvee for the USO event.

Who co-wrote the Tropic Thunder screenplay with Ben Stiller?

Theroux said the original concept had the actors returning from a mock boot camp with PTSD before it became a Vietnam-movie satire.

Which animated 2008 release did Tropic Thunder beat to the top of the box office on its opening weekend?

It took $25.8 million that weekend and $36.8 million over its first five days in 3,319 theatres.

The faux documentary Rain of Madness parodied which real film about a troubled Coppola shoot?

Justin Theroux plays fictitious documentarian Jan Jürgen; the short was later released on iTunes and the home video.

Which two Tropic Thunder actors received Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor?

The Boston Society of Film Critics also gave the whole cast its Best Ensemble award.

Tropic Thunder's Hawaiian shoot contributed roughly how much to the local economy?

It was the first major studio production on the island in five years and the largest ever filmed there.