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Ben Stiller may have had a stinker with The Heartbreak Kid, but his newest comedy Tropic Thunder, is a grand slam. In this Latino Review interview Stiller talks about working with Robert Downey Jr. in blackface, getting inspiration from Saving Private Ryan and, of course, adopting babies from Third World nations.

Latino Review: Everything you're doing as a director is great.
Ben Stiller: Oh, thanks. I love directing and that's my first love, definitely. That's what I've always wanted to do and I feel that hopefully in the length of my career, when I'm not acting anymore, that I'll keep directing.

Latino Review: Do you think some actors will tell you, "Robert was doing me"?
Stiller: Oh, sure, of course. Honestly, that's the least of my worries. I really feel like actors aren't like that. They really enjoy making fun of themselves because if you're in it you know how ridiculous it is. It's like a bloodless crime. You're not necessarily going to hurt anyone. It was always important to me though that the focus was on the actors and that it was clear that it's not-Robert's character isn't us trying to do a guy in blackface. That's wrong. We're trying to do an actor who wrong-headedly thinks that he can play a black guy in a movie and get away with it. That's wrong and it's going too far. So that was really important to me, that we always kept the focus on that.

Latino Review: Is anyone going to be able to watch the opening scene of Private Ryan again after watching this?
Stiller: I've watched it, many, many times while we were working on the movie. To me 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. A lot of the 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. This isn't funny. What are we doing?"

Latino Review: Was there any stuff that didn't make the movie that'll be on the DVD?
Stiller: In the movie there's the movie Simple Jack. There's a Simple Jack trailer that we shot that features Mickey Rooney that's awesome. He plays the angry farm owner that's mad because Jack accidentally kills one of his rabbits. It's a very sort Of Mice and Men-inspired vibe. The trailers were really a lot of work and so it's not like we had a lot of extras.

Latino Review: Were there any times where you thought you were going too far and pulled back?
Stiller: Sure, yeah. There were aspects of my character that I was talking about in the beginning that I put on the DVD, on the extended cut because at that point who cares if we're likable or not. [For example], my character's trying to adopt a baby and there's a joke where he's like, "I feel like all the good ones are taken." It was really looking at the whole movie and thinking about how to get people onboard for the ride.