Crave Online: It seems like the movies you direct have a much wilder sense of humor than the films you star in. Why do you think that is?

Ben Stiller: Probably just because I’m one of the writers and directors. It’s probably more of my own sense of humor. For me, the movies that I work on as my own as writer, director, co-writer or whatever all that kind of for me a different process and it’s my own thing I feel. For me, it’s been a long time I think since I’ve made that kind of movie where I’m the core audience for myself.

Crave Online: But you are still involved in the writing on a lot of your projects, right?

Ben Stiller: Any movie that I’m acting in, I’ll usually have a lot of input into, but that’s the thing about directing a movie. Directing is a really subjective thing. Any movie is going to have the imprint of whoever is directing it. I’m not trying to put my stamp on other people’s movies. As an actor, I’m going to be whatever I’m supposed to be in that film and I enjoy that process too, but to me directing has always been what I’ve enjoyed the most and feel most connected to.

Crave Online: Are you a hardass dictator director?

Ben Stiller: Have you talked to Downey yet? You’re directing a movie and you need to get the movie shot. Every day you have the responsibility of getting your day done and people are looking to you to know what you what because otherwise you’re floundering so there’s definitely that element and Downey will tell you there’s definitely the issue of control issues because you want it to look the way you want it to look. It’s fun and I like working with a director who knows what he wants and you also want to have freedom as an actor. It was important to me to have the actors have the freedom to do their thing and also get what I wanted it to be too so it was a balance and it was hard. 

Crave Online: How difficult was it to write Downey’s character?

Ben Stiller: It was fun to write it. It also went through a lot of changes. Originally he was written as an Irish man. He was Irish up until we started shooting. Then Downey came to me one day and said, “Can I do him Australian?” We’d already been shooting, but he hadn’t done any of his out of character stuff and he said, “Can I be Australian because I think I can improvise better in Australian.” He’d done Natural Born Killers and he’d done an Australian accent so that changed while we were shooting. Then also, for a long time he’d drop character in the middle of the movie like when we were at that river and I split off and go off on my own. In that scene he originally used to drop character and was Irish for the rest of the movie. As we started to get closer to shooting, it just seemed funnier that he just stay in character. Then the idea developed of the guy being lost in his character and not really being afraid to drop character. Sometimes there were ideas that were funny ideas that we had to figure out a way to get to. It’s funny for him to be in character so we had to justify that. Why would he stay in character?

Crave Online: When did you make him black then?

Ben Stiller: He was always black, but he dropped his black character and became an Irish man half way through the movie and then we decided to keep it.

Crave Online: What special perspective do you have on Hollywood to make fun of it?

Ben Stiller: I’ve always enjoyed that kind of humor going back to SCTV where it’s sort of making fun of behind the scenes stuff. Obviously it can be a little insular sometimes because if you’re in the business you can find that stuff funny. For me I always knew this stuff was funny to me. I just wanted to figure out a way to hopefully justify making it on the scale we were making it and it could reach out to a broad audience. I love that kind of humor and I think actors like to make fun of themselves and the business because it’s so ridiculous. There’s so many people who take themselves so seriously, myself included. We all have moments where you read a quote or an interview or you’ll se yourself saying something in a interview where you’re on TV 10 years ago and you’re like, “What was I thinking?” because it’s just a trial and error process and I think some people get caught up in it. Sometimes you sound silly, sometimes you take yourself too seriously. It’s hard to navigate through this world, the bullsh*t of it all.

Crave Online: Was it important to make it R rated?

Ben Stiller: The R rating came very early on. We knew we were satirizing these war movies and the opening scene was like, “Get your motherf*cking ass in this f*cking chopper now”, and I knew I didn’t want to lose those jokes right off the bat because of PG-13. It felt like we’d be short changing the satire of the war movies. Those movies have all that language in them. So we were strapped with that R rating right from the beginning because if you have two f*cks in a movie that’s it. You might as well just have fun with it and be able to go as far as you want to go.

Crave Online: Do you feel this will be more successful than all those Iraq war movies that no one went to see?

Ben Stiller: I think that it’s unfortunate that people don’t go see movies about the war in Iraq, but I also feel like it’s the nature of the fact that we’re in a conflict that’s very close to home and it’s hard to people don’t want to go there for entertainment. This is a comedy about making movies it’s not a war comedy. It’s not like Catch -22. It’s a different thing and I love war movies. I think that there’s some amazing movies. The movies that we’re satirizing like Platoon, Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, all those movies I grew up watching and was very affected by. I enjoyed watching them getting ready for this movie. This is a comedy and it’s really a comedy and it lives in its own place. I think sometimes in times of war people want escapism too.

Crave Online: How game was Tom Cruise to go all out with this character? 

Ben Stiller: That’s him. He’s doing that. I give him full credit. He read the script and he was like, “You have fun with the actors, it’d be great to see you do something with the studio guy.” I didn’t even think of him playing the studio guy, but it helped fill this hole in the story which was what is going on while the actors are in the jungle? Why is nobody going to save them? He said, “I want really big hands playing this guy.” I said, “Really? Big hands?” He had these hands made then I said it’d be really cool if he was bald too and so then we did this makeup test and got bald. Then he started dancing in the makeup test. He said, “It’d be interesting if this guys danced.” He just had these ideas and I was like, “This is funny and weird.” I was loving it. I love watching him do this. He started dancing in the makeup test and then we went back and wrote up this idea that he danced in the movie and I liked it a lot and thought he could do it in the end credits too. I asked him if he’d be up for dancing in the end credits and he said, “Yeah let’s do it.”

Crave Online: Why is your character the one who still believes they're making a movie?

Ben Stiller: He's at a place in his career, he’s not the most intelligent guy, but he’s not stupid. What’s going on with him is that he’s one of these guys who’s been sort of protected from reality. He’s been living in this cocoon and he’s the action guy who’s on the down swing. He’s tried to do this movie that was going to get him some credibility and it just backfires on him, the Simple Jack movie. He really needs this movie to work and when the director says he’s going to be out in the jungle filming and they’re going to be hidden cameras, he really needs to believe this is happening for his career. That’s really his motivation and he really believe this movie is happening. He needs this movie to work. I think there’s a sort of desperation for him. I think there’s also a little bit of a metaphor for being caught up in your own movie and your life all the time and taking yourself too seriously. Some people can just be like that.

Crave Online: Is there going to be a third Fockers?

Ben Stiller: I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.