Tropic Thunder/Trivia

• All-Star Cast: On top of Black, Downey and Stiller, it also had Nick Nolte and Tom Cruise in major roles. That's a fair amount of star power for a comedy.
• Directed by Cast Member: Ben Stiller. Made filming the movie a little complicated since it's about filming a movie within a movie.
• Fake Nationality: American Robert Downey, Jr. played an Australian who was playing an African American and even disguised himself as an Asian farmer. He's a dude playing a dude playing as a dude disguised as another dude. There's a reason he got an Oscar Nomination for this role.
  • The Vietnamese cartel Chinese Dragon is lead by a Chinese-American and the second-in-command is Filipino-American.
• The Other Marty: Owen Wilson was originally set to play Tugg Speedman's agent, Rick Peck, but after his suicide attempt, he understandably backed out of the role. The role ended up going to Matthew McConaughey.
• Playing Against Type: Tom Cruise in a fat suit and heavy make up that make him almost unrecognizable as a crass Jerkass film producer in a comedy film is probably one of the biggest examples of this trope in history.
• Throw It In: A few scenes just happened on its own.
  • In the scene that had Tugg talking to a flying mantis, the mantis flying in his face actually happened by accident.
  • When Tugg nearly fell into the river while he was crossing alone, Ben Stiller really did trip and nearly drown.
  • The dance sequence at the end came from Tom Cruise randomly deciding to start hip-hop dancing during a make-up test. The crew thought it was funny enough that they worked it into the script.
  • Some improvisation was used for the real film's dialogue - in fact, Kirk was written as Irish, but Robert Downey Jr. found it easier to improvise with an Australian accent.
• What Could Have Been: Peck was supposed to be played Owen Wilson but he dropped out to seek treatment after a suicide attempt.

• Role Association: Gaylord Focker, Dewey Finn and Tony Stark do a movie together, with Octavius as the director, Ethan Hunt as producer and Kenny Powers on special effects.
  • Lampshaded and mocked for the MTV Movie Awards intro of 2008: Ben Stiller tries to ramp up popularity by billing Jack Black as Po and RD Jr. as Iron Man on the poster. From there, he creates a viral video with the twosome, the first take of which has them in masks of their respective hit movie characters. Iron Man kicks Po in the crotch, and it just gets worse from there for Black. It ends with him getting his face exploded. Stiller tries to pass it off as realistic special effects to an understandably annoyed RD Jr.
  • Also in the fake trailers at the beginning of the movie, Tony Stark and Peter Parker as gay monks!
    • "Dear Mr. Joe Queseda, boy do I have an idea for you..."
    • Could also be an Actor Allusion to the relationship the two actors' characters had in "Wonder Boys".
  • Lampshaded in the Cast Commentary, where Ben Stiller notes Jay and Brandon weren't even present for the commentary (both supposedly had some other appointments at the time).