About this clip
A short clip from Tropic Thunder.
Dialogue
- Just wish I had a director like this on Jack.
- On Jack. What? Jack? What you talking about?
- ?i>Simple Jack> –Oh, yeah.
- Simple Jack, yeah. You went all out on that one, huh?
- You did. Really swung for the fences, huh?
- Thank you. Thanks. Yeah.
- Yeah, it was an intense experience, you know.
- I just did the work.
- Watched a lot of retarded people. Spent time with them. Observed them.
- Watched all the retarded stuff they did.
- Then again, I always found mere observation
- in and of itself is a tad rudimentary.
- Sometimes, we gotta dig deeper to mine the true emotional pay dirt.
- Thus, we can diagram the source of the pain and then live it, you know.
- Yeah, yeah, live it. Yeah, exactly.
- You know, there were times when I was doing Jack
- that I actually felt retarded,
- –like really retarded. –Oh, yeah.
- I mean, I brushed my teeth retarded,
- –I rode the bus retarded. –Damn.
- In a weird way, I had to sort of just free myself up
- to believe that it was okay to be stupid or dumb.
- –To be a moron. –Yeah.
- –To be moronical. –Exactly, to be a moron.
- –An imbecile. –Yeah.
- Like the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived.
- When I was playing the character.
- –When you was the character. –Yeah, as Jack, definitely.
- Jack, stupid ass Jack.
- Trying to come back from that.
- In a weird way it was almost like I had to sort of fool my mind
- into believing that it wasn't retarded,
- and by the end of the whole thing, I was like,
- “Wait a minute, I flushed so much out, how am I gonna jumpstart it up again?
- –It's just like?Right? –Yeah.
- You was farting in bathtubs and laughing your ass off.
- Yeah.
- But Simple Jack thought he was smart,
- or rather, didn't think he was retarded,
- so you can't afford to play retarded, being a smart actor.
- Playing a guy who ain't smart but thinks he is,
- –that's tricky. –Tricky.
- It's like working with mercury. It's high science, man. It's an art form.
- –Yeah. –You an artist.
- –That's what we do, right? Yeah. –Yeah.
- Hats off for going there,
- especially knowing how the Academy is about that shit.
- –About what? –You're serious? You don't know?
- Everybody knows you never go full retard.
