Your character in Tropic Thunder, that's a laugh and a half, isn't it?

I'll take it. I don't know what we were thinking, but now that I see it, I'm very proud.

Did you know that that was the role for you? Was there any doubt in your mind before you said yes to it?

Well, obviously, playing an actor who plays a black man in a movie, even though you have some aesthetic distance by the way it's set up, it's still potentially hazardous. But we coupled it with Brandon Jackson playing Alpa Chino who's giving me a lot of guff throughout. But the whole premise of the movie with Stiller as this kind of disaffected action star and Jack is the drug adult comedy guy, it just seemed like there'd be something missing if somebody wasn't going so method that it was really inappropriate and borderline psychotic.

How did you feel about the movie's premise? Did you like the fact that it took a sidewards swipe at everything about Hollywood and everything about these stereotypical actors?

My take is, given an opportunity, in the right company I'll do it all the time anyway. And they say there's this phenomenon, we like to build people up and knock them down and I'm like, well, whatever. Maybe it's human nature, maybe we haven't evolved past it, but I think it's a lot of fun.

Word is that you based your Kirk Lazarus character on award-winning Aussie actors. Was RusselI Crowe ever an influence?

I didn't. Here's the thing. Kirk Lazarus was Irish. And while I could probably have done an lrish accent, I don't know if I could have done it as weIl. And because I had already done an Australian accent when I did Natural Bom Killers, it was out of convenience's sake. It winds up serving the greater purpose of the movie better.

It's a career first for you, playing blackface. Did you recall being afraid of how it might go down?

I don't remember what I was thinking, but I loved being a black man. I was like, this man is so beautiful. He's deep. He talks from his spirit, and he knows he is surrounded by morons. But he's going to usher and show them the way.

We heard you stayed in character through the filming of Tropic Thunder.

I was just in the zone. There were some days where I just feIt like I was Sergeant Lincoln Osiris, which is stupid because that was the whole thing I was making fun of with Kirk Lazarus and who he thinks he is. But then, there were days at lunch when people came by my trailer and talked to me and it was just easier to stay in character than to break it.

How did the action sequences here compare to Iron Man's?

It was a lot more immediate. Truth be told, Tropic Thunder was stepping it up a little bit. Basically in the fist two weeks I saw more squibs and explosions go off than I had in my entire career.

We have to talk about Tom Cruise and his Tropic Thunder cameo as a foul-mouthed studio boss. Obviously there're some people who aren't even going to realise he's in the film because the makeup was so good.

Those scenes are nutty. And the funny thing about them is on a certain level there's something about them that's not even comedy. You find yourself laughing because they're smartly written and the fact that he's coming from a whole different dimension.

What's the most embarrassing thing you have in your rider?

Oh boy, like I'm gonna tell you the truth. But let's go with cut red, yellow and green peppers, depending on the weather.

Every interview we read with you, it seems like someone is always throwing those drug-and-rehab questions at you. Are you sick of it all?

Yeah you know, we can never get off this topic even if you want to. No, I'll stay knee deep in molasses till the sun goes down, and I don't give a shit anymore.

What's it like being directed by Ben Stiller?

Fantastic. He really is a good director, you know. He really knows what he's doing and how he's going to get it done. It was excruciating at times, but he's always driving towards the goal you know. I mean, have you seen his arms in the movie? They were huge. He was f***ing ripped. If somebody had come out at the end and said that Ben was cruising on steroids the whole time we were shooting, I would have said, "Oh god, that explains it." Well, fortunately (for the movie), Ben has created a bigger stir with his reckless portrayal of mentally challenged people. And now those special interest groups are coming for us. Or rather, for him.

Was Ben, as a director, hard on the crew?

We were doing the full retard scene, and I'm looking at him square in the face and he's off camera and I'm in make-up and he's feeding me lines that he liked already and he goes "You're dumb" and I go "You're dumb." And then he goes like, "You're the dumbest motherf***** that has ever lived." It was so strange to have the director in the same frame as me, telling me what to say to him. The funny thing was, we acted like we were making the greatest story ever told. You'd have thought we were doing Platoon. It was so serious. Ben is not unlike Kubrick if Kubrick were directing The Producers. He was just so precise and direct about it. It was hilarious.

Funny that you mentioned Ben's serious approach. Was there any research done at all for the character of Kirk Lazarus?

None, because it was my goal for there to be nothing stereotypical except for when the story demands it, which was when he puts on his blackface. So the funny thing about this, in retrospect, all I remember is that we had discussions and then talk is over and you're out there shooting a f***ing movie and so I was trying to be as natural and entertaining as I could.

But you sounded, how can we put this, authentically black.

If you're wondering about that voice I was using, it just came to me when I was doing the movie. And the whole character rode on that frequency for the rest of the shoot.

Before you go, tell us a bit about the Sherlock Holmes film you're working on now with Guy Richie.

It's set in 1891. Not many people know that the original Sherlock Holmes was a bare-knuckle boxer who happens to be a master of Baritsu as well, which is a very nebulous martial art that I love. We're gonna make it fun and accessible, because I've seen a lot of kid-friendly movies and a lot of super dark movies as well and I think we need less darkness and more entertainment. So I'm hoping we can do something more accessible.