https://www.indiewire.com/news/events/stephen-colbert-tropic-thunder-late-show-paleyfest-2024-1234977150/
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Stephen Colbert
carrybuh — 1 year ago(May 23, 2024 04:15 AM)
https://www.indiewire.com/news/events/stephen-colbert-tropic-thunder-late-show-paleyfest-2024-1234977150/
“We were flying to London for Thanksgiving or something like that one year and Evie and my daughter were sitting in front of me,” Colbert said. “Evie turned around to the kids and was saying, ‘Check on your father! Something seems too busy! I think there’s something wrong with him!’ because I was watching ‘Tropic Thunder,’ which I’d never seen.”
Reacting to one of the final scenes in director Ben Stiller’s legendary satire about the action genre from 2008, Colbert said he made a wheezing sound watching Tugg Speedman (Stiller) get rescued by Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr. in a controversial role he doesn’t regret). Evie confused that “busy” sound, Colbert said, for some sort of medical attack.
“It’s so dumb,” Colbert noted not of his wife’s adorable concern, but of the meta moment that made him lose it at 40,000 feet. “It’s where they come in at the end and [Tugg] goes, ‘This is my son. He’s called Twigman…’ because he’s built a little boy out twigs. And [Kirk] is like, ‘Tugg, we got to get you out of here.’ And they’re trying to drop character, but they’re too deep. It’s making fun of actors because they’re too deep in character and they can’t get out of character and they have to get out of character before they can escape this drug den.”
The scene sees Downey removing various costume pieces (a wig, for example) and transitioning through a set of increasingly funny caricatures. Still, it’s the button reveal at the end about the fictional in-universe film “Moon Shot” that caused Colbert to scare his wife with a suffocating sound.
“He’s transporting from one character to another. And he’s like, ‘You are right. I’m not Sergeant Lincoln Osiris.’ Then [with an accent] he goes, ‘Nor am I Father O’Malley.’ Like these are all Oscar-winning roles that he’s done. Then, he takes off his goatee and he goes,” Colbert said in a raspy voice, “‘Nor am I Neil Armstrong!'”
“And I went, ‘Oh, ****! He played Neil Armstrong as a pirate?!,’” he said with a laugh. “The backstory you saw in that! And then I started choking. I couldn’t breathe.”