EW has the first look at Ben Stiller‘s new action-comedy Tropic Thunder.

Look closely at the image at right (click for larger view): There’s Stiller in Rambo garb in the forefront; that’s a platinum-haired Jack Black in the back; and who’s that African-American actor in the middle? He looks real familiar, right?

That’s because he’s the one and only Robert Downey Jr!

In the Stiller-directed film, which opens August 15, 2008, the trio play a group of prima donna A-list actors who are cast in an expensive Vietnam War film. Fed up with their attitudes, the film’s director and writer send the actors off into the jungle to fend for themselves, though the actors think it’s part of the filmmaking, not realizing they’re in real danger.

Downey plays the serious Oscar-winning actor Kirk Lazarus, who dyes his skin to play a part in the film originally written for a black actor.

I don’t know about you, but my first reaction was, “Please let me be in Soul Man.” Then I kept reading the EW piece and there’s a quote from Downey: ”I dove in with both feet. If I didn’t feel it was morally sound, or that it would be easily misinterpreted that I’m just C. Thomas Howell in [Soul Man], I would’ve stayed home.”