So P. Diddy auditioned for the role of Kirk Lazarus in “Tropic Thunder”? Apparently so. Wait, wasn’t Lazarus written into the script as an Australian playing a black man (Robert Downey Jr. of course score the “controversial” part)? Did Diddy think he could do inverse whitener and pull an Aussie playing a black man role? God, who ever knows what Diddy is thinking.
Diddy was apparently kidding when he said, “I have not been in any of Ben Stiller’s movies. I guess I wasn’t black enough to be in ‘Tropic Thunder.’ Robert Downey Jr was a little bit blacker. I tried out for the role but I came up short. I put Ben in the video for my single ‘Bad Boy For Life’ and I thought he would return the favour,” but you know he’s kind of being serious. “Yo, bro, I did you a favor, why would gotta do me like Malcolm?”
We love how in this week’s Entertainment Weekly (of which RDJ graces the cover) there’s continued talk of how “bold” Downey was to take this role. Sure, we guess on paper, it must’ve seen risky, but there’s nothing controversial about his depiction in ‘Thunder,’ because most of it was pretty safe and harmless stuff. They really should have pushed that further. Maybe Dids could have brought that edge. He is African American after all.
