Q: Do you think other actors will approach you saying you were mocking them specifically?

Ben Stiller: Oh, sure.  Of course, I mean, honestly, that’s like the least of my worries. I really don’t think actors are like that. They really enjoy making fun of themselves, because if you’re in it you see how ridiculous it is. And it’s like a bloodless crime. You’re not really going to hurt anybody. It was always important to me that the focus was always on the actors and it was clear that Robert’s character – we’re not trying to do a guy in blackface. That’s wrong. We are trying to do an actor who wrong-headedly thinks he can do a black guy in a movie and get away with it. That’s wrong. It’s going to far. So, that was really important, that we always kept the focus on that.

Q: Any times where you stopped and thought maybe we’re going to far? Did you hold anything back?

Ben Stiller: Sure, there were aspects of my character, like I was talking about, like in the beginning that I put on the DVD, the extended cut because at that point, who cares if we’re likable or not? (Laughs.)  Um, but that was one of the things, because my character is trying to adopt a baby and there’s a joke where he like, ‘I feel like all the good ones are taken.’ And it was always funny out of context, but in the movie people always felt like people thought, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to watch that guy for the rest of the movie.’ (Laughs.) So, I cut that from the movie, but ended up putting that on the DVD. That kind of thing. There was definitely, it was really like looking at the whole movie and wanting people to really get on board for the whole ride of the movie. So, that was always the framework.

Q: But you gave a lot of thought to the retarded young man?

Ben Stiller: Yes, for sure. Y’know, again, the same focus through the lens of ‘What would an actor do to try and win an award that would be wrongheaded?’ And that playing ‘Simple Jack’ was an obvious attempt for legitimacy and obviously out of context that could seem wrong, but I felt within the context of the movie we’ve seen this happen in life. We all know, anytime an actor goes out and does that it’s really putting yourself out there. It’s a really tough thing to pull off, so.

Q: Haven’t heard from Sean Penn yet?

Ben Stiller: No, no. Here’s the thing you say about actor’s having a sense of humor about themselves.  Sean, I gave Sean the script to read so he knew about it and knew about it and he was totally cool with it to the point where at the end of the movie at the Academy Awards, there is a picture of one of the Academy nominees’ blind doing a character. And Sean actually posed for that picture and did that for the movie.

Q: How much ad libbing was there because Steve Coogan was saying you were yelling ‘cut’ and he was going, ‘Is he Ben or?’?

Ben Stiller: Well, that scene was ridiculously confusing because I was directing it and had my hands tied behind my back because I had fake hands which you need your hands to direct I’ve realized and I’m yelling ‘Cut’ and my character is yelling ‘Cut’, you saw the movie, so it was just very confusing. That was the most frustrating. There was a lot of improvisation. I mean, everybody in the movie improvises and is good at it, so that was why we shot so much film and there is a lot to choose from in that way, but once you get in to the edit of the movie you have to keep the story going forward.

Q: Is anyone going to be able to watch the opening scene of ‘Private Ryan’ again after this?

Ben Stiller: I watched it many, many times when we were working on the movie. And the funny, the great thing about working on this movie and getting ready to do it was getting to watch all these films again because I love these movies. They are such good films and to watch that stuff. ‘OK, we’re gonna watch the helicopter scene from ‘Apocalypse Now’ to work on, to get some ideas. And you end up watching it and you end up 45 minutes later and we’re all like just watching ‘Apocalypse Now.’ And it was the same thing with ‘Private Ryan.’ It’s like, ‘Oh,’ and then it’s like ‘Oh, god, Jesus, that’s horrible.’ So, you just get caught up in the movies because they are good. So, a lot of these prep sessions were just us watching movies and then the moment of like, ‘God, is there anything funny in this? There’s nothing funny in this. What are we doing?’

Q: Can you talk about ‘Night at the Museum 2’?

Ben Stiller: We are shooting it now. We are in the middle of it now. I’m enjoying it a lot because it’s a lot less lonely than the first one, because I get to run around the Museums – first of all we’re in the Smithsonian so we get to run into the Air and Space Museum and we get to go into the National Art Gallery and go into paintings and photographs.  Amy Adams plays a statue of Amelia Erhardt that comes to life and she’s running around the museum with me the whole time. It’s a lot less lonely for me. Because a lot of the time I was dealing with CG things that weren’t there. And we’ve got this incredible cast joining, Ricky Gervais, Steve Coogan. Owen is back. And also this time around we’ve got Christopher Guest, which is just amazing. I can’t believe I’m in a movie with Christopher Guest. He’s playing Ivan the Terrible and Hank Azaria is playing the Egyptian bad guy. We actually have a bad guy in the movie. So, it’s good. It’s really been fun and we’re about 2/3rds through shooting.

Q: It has been seven years since ‘Zoolander,’ and you’re knee deep in ‘Tropic,’ but do you have anything else you’re thinking about directing?

Ben Stiller: Yeah, I mean there are a couple of other projects I’ve been working on for awhile. There is one in particular that I want to do, but I think it will be sooner than seven years before I direct again, yes, because I really enjoy this process so much.

Q: Another comedy or drama or?

Ben Stiller: It’s not a big comedy. It sort of like a little bit darker, but funny too, but smaller, y’know?

Q: If I wanted to push any further, any story you want to tell me?

Ben Stiller: It’s not really a secret, I’ve talked about it before. It’s this movie called ‘Civil War Land and Bad Decline.’ It’s based on short story by George Saunders and it’s a great short story. It’s about a guy who works in a Civil War theme park. But it’s kind of dark and it goes to a different place, but I love it and we’ve been developing it about as long as ‘Tropic,’ so I’m excited about it.

Q: ‘Tropic Thunder II’?

Ben Stiller: Definitely not. For sure. No ‘II.’