He is the king of American comedy. At age 56, the protagonist of hits such as “Zoolander”, “My girlfriend Polly” or “Crazy about Mary” has not only shown enormous talent as an actor but also as a producer and director of series such as “Severance” or “Escape At Dannemora”, or in films such as “The Cable Guy” and “Reality Bites” or in “Tropic Thunder”, which he wrote and starred in .
Ben Stiller achieved all the success a person could want and more. Born in New York, he began his career as a child. Already at the age of 10 he made his acting debut in the legal drama “Kate McShane”, which starred his own mother, Anne Meara. In 1989, when he was taking classes at the Actors Studio, he was hired as a screenwriter on “Saturday Night Live”, having almost nothing on his resume, but after a few weeks he resigned. In 1987, he had already acted in a great film, “The Empire of the Sun “, directed by Steven Spielberg. Although he played a small role, Ben shared filming with John Malkovich, Joe Pantoliano and a thirteen-year-old boy named Christian Bale.
“As a child who watched his films and made me want to make films, working with him was as exciting as you could think,” Stiller told of that meeting with Speilberg. On set, the director received the actor to see how he prepared certain shots and explained what he was doing.
The last few years haven't been easy. In 2015, her mother, Anne Meara, died after suffering a stroke. The following year, “Zoolander 2″ failed miserably. In 2017, he split from Christine Taylor. His father, Jerry Stiller, died in May 2020.
But today he enjoys a great work present. Stiller is preparing to be the main face in the theatrical adaptation of the novel “The Shining”, the horror classic that Stephen King wrote in 1977 and later popularized in the cinema with Jack Nicholson under Stanley Kubrick's orders in 1980. This is a project that had been in the making for several years, but that had to be interrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19 and the closure of theatres. Ivo van Hove will be in charge of the laying. It will be released in London's West End in January 2023.
In addition, Apple TV+ has already confirmed a second season of “Severance”, the critically acclaimed thriller by creator and writer Dan Erickson. “It's really exciting to see the response from people who love the show, and the level of fan engagement,” Stiller said on Twitter. “It's been a long way to bring 'Severance' to television. I first read Dan's pilot more than five years ago. It has always been a story designed for several seasons, and I am very happy that we can continue it”,
Son of two legends of humor
Ben Stiller has interpretation in his genes. I had to be an actor. Son of legendary comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, he lived his childhood between cameras and film sets. Over the years, Stiller talked about his particular family and what it was like to grow up with famous parents. “We had to stay up late and go to television studios. It was a fun fantasy land.” With her older sister Amy, also an actress, they spent nights watching Jerry and Anne rehearsing in their apartment in New York.
On May 11, 2020, the actor had to communicate his enormous sadness at the death of his father. Five years ago his mother had died of cancer.
The actor and director used his Twitter account to dismiss who was his inspiration and the man who made him laugh the most. “Very sad to tell that my father, Jerry Stiller, died of natural causes. He was a great father, grandfather, and most dedicated husband to Anne, for 62 years. I'm going to miss him so much. I love you dad”, he wrote in a heartfelt message.
A few days later, and still in the midst of mourning, Stiller spoke of his father's last days before his death, at the age of 92. In an interview with The New Yorker, the protagonist of “Zoolander” -a film in which his father also starred- said that he and his sister Amy spent time with him and that until the last moment the renowned comedian kept his sense of humor. “I had been sick for a while. We were able to be with him, for which I am very, very grateful,” he said.
Stiller, on more than one occasion, has claimed that his father was “the funniest man on earth” In his last days, he was reluctant to die despite his poor health. “He left peacefully and had a sense of humor, until the end,” he shared. “I hesitate to call it a sense of humor. He was just funny, and he was always himself. He was almost ninety-three years old, and I think his body was at a point where it was time,” he added.
Among the many anecdotes that Ben Stiller has told in his interviews, one of the most remembered is the day he called his father high. He told it in an interview he gave Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” in a kind of tribute to the late comedian.
On camera, Ben said he was so confident with his father that, when he was 16 years old and after using hallucinogenic drugs, he didn't hesitate to call him to tell him about his bad experience with LSD. “The first and the last time,” he said of this episode.
“I got scared and my first instinct was, 'I'm going to call my parents. ' Because children call their parents when they use LSD, right? ”, joked the actor. “Maybe that example serves to show what our relationship was like because my first impulse was that, I felt it was him I wanted to go to,” Stiller explained about the bond that linked him to his father.
During the phone call, Jerry Stiller was in the city of Los Angeles filming an episode of the series “The Love Cruise”, but he did his best to reassure his son.
“The first thing he said to me was 'You're going to be alright. ' And he started talking to me about it, even though he didn't know anything about drugs. He said, 'I know what you're feeling. When I was 10 years old, I smoked a cigarette from Pall Mall and I was sick for two days,” the interpreter said.
Another time, Stiller recalled the first time he walked alone to school that was five blocks from his New York home as a child in 1974. On that short walk he noticed a familiar presence. Jerry secretly accompanied him. “My dad was nervous, so he followed me,” he said. “He literally followed me in a car to the point where the police stopped him because they thought he was harassing me. I was so crazy.”
Frank Costanza couldn't get through an episode of “Seinfeld” without yelling at his family, but the man who played it was quite the opposite as a father in real life. “He didn't want anything bad to happen to his children. Sometimes, that could drive you crazy as a kid because you need to live your life, but he was always there for us when we needed him.”
Stiller also revealed his father's adorable reaction to a bad film review he received some 15 years ago. He and his family lived in the same apartment building in New York City as his parents at the time.
“A film I was in received a bad review, and the next morning there was a note under my door from my father that said, 'I read the review in the New York Times, don't worry. ' I'm going to write to the guy and take care of it. ' That was my dad,” he said.
Stiller also reflected on the loving 61-year marriage of Jerry and Anne. “I don't want to get too cheesy, but I feel like they're connected again,” he said.
About them, he stated that they instilled in him the “dedication and passion” towards his work and recalled a piece of advice they gave him to stay faithful in the tough industry of the entertainment world. “Never change who you are just to please other people.”
Your fight against cancer
Another of Ben Stiller's confessions in an interview was in 2016 on Howard Stern's radio show. The then 50-year-old actor announced that two years earlier, in 2014, he had to be treated for an aggressive form of prostate cancer.
“It appeared out of nowhere. I had no idea,” he said. “At first I didn't know what was going to happen to me. I was very afraid. Everything stopped in my life. I couldn't plan any film because I didn't know what was going to happen to me,” said the Hollywood star.
“The first thing I did when I was diagnosed was to turn to the internet to learn something. I saw that Robert De Niro had. I called him right away,” Stiller said.
The actor was diagnosed thanks to a test for prostate antigens, a blood test known as PSA. He was 48 years old. “If it hadn't been for the exam, I don't know what would have happened to me. I feel that the test saved my life,” said the actor, who said that his doctor urged him to take the test at a younger age than is advised
Today the actor is free from the disease after undergoing an operation, in which his prostate was removed. “I'm really good. I was very fortunate that my treatment was just an operation and that's it,” said the protagonist of “Zoolander” in 2016.
However, this decision posed risks to their sexual performance. Stiller was encouraged to talk frankly about his sex life after surgery. “When faced with the question of whether you want to live or want to make sure that your sex life is the best, I chose to get rid of cancer and see what happens and, fortunately, everything works well.”
He also urged men to have regular check-ups: “If it were up to me, all men should get tested between the ages of 40 and 45.”
Confinement brought him back together with the love of his life
In 2017, the news of the separation of Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor transcended after eighteen years of relationship and two children a common one. But five years later and in full social isolation due to the pandemic, the exes bet on a new future together.
What was one of the most established marriages in Hollywood has been given a second chance and this was confirmed by the actor in a recent interview with Esquire magazine. The interpreter said that their relationship was rekindled after his ex-wife, 50, told him that it would be better if he moved in with her and her two children, Ella Olivia, 19, and Quinlin Dempsey, 16, during the first days of the pandemic, since it would be the only way they could be during the hardest period of confinement.
“Over time, what happened to us evolved,” he confessed. “We broke up and got back together and we're happy about it. It's been really wonderful for all of us. Unexpected and one of the things that came out of the pandemic,” he said.
In May 2017, the couple released a statement announcing their separation following their waterfront wedding in Kauai, Hawaii, in 2000 and after working together on several projects such as “Zoolander” and “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story”. However, their divorce did not stop them from continuing to show themselves together in public.
Stiller and Taylor met each other in 1999 during the recording of a television pilot and, just a year later, they said “I do” each other. They say it was love at first sight.
Stiller emphasized that this reconciliation is a very thoughtful decision and the result of the great work that both of them have done. “I think we respect the things we have in common and also those where we are different. And I think that by accepting that, you can really appreciate someone more, because you're not trying to make them change for you,” he reflected.
“Once you accept that, you save a lot of energy. If you have that level of trust with your partner, know that when you say 'I don't like doing that' you're not saying 'I don't like you',” said the actor, who also lives a working present with the series “Severance”, which he directed and produced for Apple TV+, which has already announced the renewal of a second season.
Her daughter Ella, who wants to follow in the footsteps of her parents, was hard on the actor who she reproached for being absent in her teens, on the occasion of the separation.
“He was very eloquent, he knows how to express himself very well, although they were very hard things to listen to”, acknowledged the director. “I wasn't with her in the same way that my parents weren't with me, and I always thought I shouldn't do the same, although at the same time I was looking for my own path and fulfilling the dreams I had. And that wasn't right, but it's important to acknowledge it,” he said.
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