Stiller: In fact, that's where the idea of Tropic Thunder came from. Around 1985 all these Vietnam war movies were being made. I never got any of the roles. I even met with Oliver Stone. Nothing. I remember the guys who got those parts were always doing interviews about going off to boot camp for two weeks, how it was the toughest experience of their lives. They had to camp out, shoot guns, eat C rations, all of that. There was something so ironic and funny about actors talking about how hard it was to go off to boot camp for two weeks for a movie about a war when it obviously had nothing to do with the real experience of war.

Stiller: We were going to have a three-day boot camp with Dale Die, the boot camp legend. Then three-days became two-days. Then it became 24 hours. Finally Stuart Cornfeld, my producing partner, came over and said, 'Okay, here's the deal: we can do either the one-day boot camp or cast dinner.' I said, 'Fuck it, let's do the cast dinner.'