Tropic Thunder director and star Ben Stiller has opened up about pal Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt last August.

“It’s impossible to understand that kind of pain – depression or anything like that – until you’re in it,” Stiller tells Playboy in the August issue of the magazine.

“I love Owen,” he says of his Royal Tenenbaums co-star. “I felt bad that he had to deal with all the outside bulls–t.”

Stiller, 42, also reveals that he was “blown away” by Tropic Thunder co-star Robert Downey Jr.

“I started trying to copy him,” the comic says. “It was like, ‘Wow, this guy’s a genius; maybe if I do what he does, I’ll be a genius too!’”

Stiller jokes: “If he had spun around and thrown oat bran at the moon, I’d have run out, bought some oat bran and started spinning. I want to look like I’m as big a genius as he is.”

Tom Cruise’s anticipated role as a studio chief – for which he wore a fat suit – in Tropic Thunder was his own idea, Stiller says.

“It wasn’t even in the script,” Stiller says. “I didn’t have to persuade him.”

The actor tells Playboy that “people would rather dwell on somebody else’s problems than look at their own” – and revealed he’s just like Us!

“Do I want to pick up a copy of U.S. News & World Report or grab Us Weekly?” he asks. “If I’m in a checkout line, I’ll take the one with the big pictures.”

So is there a line of humiliation that the jokester won’t consider?

“I think I’d draw the line at porn, but no one has asked,” Stiller tells Playboy.

Tropic Thunder opens August 13.

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