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The Interview
Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
00:48:00
The actor-director discusses the long-awaited return of the hit series, the comedies that made him a star and growing up with his famous parents.
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- [00:00]
Ben Stiller
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- [00:39]
David Marchese
From the New York Times. This is the interview. I'm David Marchese. The long awaited Emmy Award winning series Severance returns for its second season next week. I've seen a bunch of the new episodes which have some real surprises in them, and I can say that I'm very eager to see other fans reaction to how the show has moved forward with its story. By way of a reminder, that story is a about a rebellious group of employees at the mysterious and probably malevolent Lumen Industries. Those employees are office drones whose consciousness has been artificially separated between their work selves, also known as their innies, and their outies, their selves away from the office. That sense of a divided self is one to which Ben Stiller, who co directed and co executive produces the series, can probably relate. It's actually one of the things that's most intriguing to me about him. He's a hugely successful comedic actor from mainstream hits like Meet the Par and Night at the Museum who has gradually stepped away from acting in favor of his first love, directing. As a director, he's a much more subversive and distinctive stylist than his biggest acting roles might suggest. Take, for example, more serious projects like his crime drama series Escape a Dannemora, as well as Severance, of course, and also his off the wall comedy satires like Cable Guy and Zoolander, the latter of which he also starred in. So I don't think I'm overreaching in suggesting that there is some innie outie severance style tension, if you will, running through Stiller's own story. As I found out while speaking with him at his Manhattan office, that's something he was trying to make sense of too. Here's my conversation with Ben Stiller. You know, I I was thinking about Severance and sort of where it fits in the arc of your career. Are there specific things that working on comedy gave you the tools for when it comes to working on something like Severance, which I would describe as maybe comedy adjacent.
- [02:51]
Ben Stiller
It's funny because I just, I don't categorize it specifically and I think I find that stuff very funny. I mean, I think whenever anything is very specific, it's always funny And I feel like the show sort of has its basis in the workplace comedy like the Office or Office Space or Parks and Rec, but where it goes off. I think this season we probably went to some stranger places, but I felt like that was also just part of what the show is. The show has to continue on its journey and can't just stay and doing the same thing. But I love that stuff you think.
- [03:28]
David Marchese
Of the second season is still in the vein of a workplace comedy.
- [03:34]
Ben Stiller
The second season probably gets a little bit stranger than that. Yeah, but it is. But it is based in the idea that started the show. Right. That these people are in a workplace doing a job that they don't understand. They don't know who they are or what they're doing or why they're there. And that, to me, has always been sort of the. You know, that's the sort of like the blueprint for the show.
- [03:56]
David Marchese
You know, there were a couple news stories that came out about Severance being a difficult production with delays and creative differences. Was it a particularly difficult production? And do you find that there is any link between how difficult something is to make and the uniqueness of that thing? Because Severance is sort of a. A unique show. And I wonder if it just is going to be trickier than if you're doing, like, a traditional sitcom or something.
- [04:27]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, I have never really believed that idea of, like, you know, you have to have friction or something on a set or, you know, I've heard directors talk about that to keep sort of tension on set. I think just the nature of making this show over the last. I mean, it's five years now has been a learning experience. And, yeah, sometimes, you know, creatively it's been the questions of, like, which way do we go with it? And I really believe that the show comes out of the different creative perspectives of the people who work on it. And so, yeah, it's not always perfect. We went through patches where there were difficulties, but it's also. I think it all came out of everybody wanting something to be as good as it could be. And I really believe that all those different points of view ended up making the show what it is. So, yeah, there was some stuff that happened, but it wasn't a big deal.
- [05:29]
David Marchese
Do you know how the series ends? Do you have the arc all plotted out?
- [05:34]
Ben Stiller
We have the end. Yes.
- [05:37]
David Marchese
Would it be a spoiler to tell me the ending?
- [05:40]
Ben Stiller
Yes, of course. You know the answer.
- [05:45]
David Marchese
You know what you're working towards.
- [05:46]
Ben Stiller
Yes, we definitely have an end. I think we now know exactly how Many seasons, which I won't say at this point, but yeah, can you say.
- [05:57]
David Marchese
Something enigmatic that seems like it reveals a clue to the ending?
- [06:03]
Ben Stiller
I mean, in my mind, this series has always been about Mark and, you know, his Innie and his Audi and what happens with his Innie and his Audi and what is the ultimate sort of destination for both of them.
- [06:20]
David Marchese
I knew it.
- [06:20]
Ben Stiller
Yeah.
- [06:22]
David Marchese
So what you were saying a beat before about people being at work and on some level sort of mystified about the fact that, you know, things seem opaque, you don't really feel like you have control, you don't know who's really making the decisions. I was thinking that maybe Hollywood is like that in some ways. It's not clear who's calling the shots or where the power really lies. Did your work experience inform the show in any way?
- [06:49]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I do think, you know, what you said is true, that at a certain point there's always somebody making a decision who is not making it to your face or telling you or you even know who that person is. And it can be really, really frustrating. I think in show business, even probably more than, I mean, just from my own experience, the, you know, how something happens, why it happens, why someone gets rejected, why a decision is made is never explained to the artist or the creative person. Or if it is, it's usually not the truth. You know, it's a cliche in Hollywood, but it's kind of true, is that everybody will say yes. And it doesn't mean yes, it means no. Or let me think about it, or yeah, great, this was a great meeting. And then like a day later, yeah, they're passing more than ever, honestly these days because, you know, it's a very tough environment now to get things made. I think just with post, the strike, post Covid, it's more expensive to make things. And I think the decision makers are, you know, trying to keep their jobs and trying to figure out how to make things work for them. Which make means constriction and choices that are safer.
- [08:02]
David Marchese
You know, hearing you say that brings to mind sort of in the late 90s into the 2000s, sort of your bread and butter were these big Hollywood comedies. And in a lot of those films you played, it was kind of a type. You were sort of a well meaning, often outsider in some sense, who is made to suffer a bunch of indignities but ultimately kind of comes out on top at the end. Was there any part of you that felt like you understood why audiences responded to you in that role in particular? Like, what? Was there any part where you're like, why do they want to see me again?
- [08:45]
Ben Stiller
Honestly? Yeah, I never. I had no. I mean, it's funny because at the time, I remember, like, a moment in time when, like, people started having that reaction. Like, I would, like, open up a newspaper and be like, why is Ben Stiller in every movie? I remember opening up the LA Times and a guy wrote, it was actually a funny inside joke with Ricky Gervais for a long time because there was this writer who wrote a letter to God, dear God, stop putting Ben Stiller in comedies. And it was like, yeah, but I wasn't thinking. I was just like, I don't know, I'm here, I'm doing it. I love doing what I do. But, you know, it's only in retrospect, more to look back and go, oh, yeah, that was like, wow. There was like, you know, a thing happening there that, you know, I was very fortunate to be a part of. But I don't know what the Zeitgeist was or what, you know. And you can look at 2000s comedies now and go, okay, they were a specific kind of thing, a tone. And there were a lot of great things in those comedies, too, that we don't have now. But I don't know if you can recreate that now. But at the time, I really wasn't analyzing it too much. I was kind of just trying to figure out how to navigate it.
- [09:58]
David Marchese
You know, you did have this real string of big movies from, like, Something About Mary, sort of like through the Night at the Museum. Did you feel like, because those movies were hitting you, kind of got swept up in something that was sort of out of your control a little bit. Like, what was your thinking about the work in that period?
- [10:23]
Ben Stiller
It's not something when you're in it that you are really able to analyze, you know, because it's happening.
- [10:33]
David Marchese
And I sort of don't believe you when you wanted to say that, because I suspect you were very strategic throughout your career thinking about what was going to potentially work at different times. But I. What do I know?
- [10:43]
Ben Stiller
I don't think so, because I don't think I'm that smart, really. I think I would make decisions based. Like, I remember very clearly Night at the Museum was a decision because I grew up near the Natural History Museum, and I thought, oh, I love this. Like, if I was a kid, I'd love this and it'd be fun to do.
- [11:01]
David Marchese
But then the Night at the Museum, three decision is a little different, right?
- [11:06]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, but it's also, you know, at that point, you know, you've got a team together and those were all fun to do. And like, you know, I'm not gonna not want to work with Robin Williams or, you know, Shawn Levy getting this group together. But, you know, when I was in that period, I don't think I had the ability to kind of like hover over it and go, like, how am I looking at? And a lot of actors and filmmakers do have that ability. I just wasn't at that place. So the only part of it that was sort of like nagging at me was like, I like to do other kinds of movies as a filmmaker. And I just never really stopped to make the time to do that. I was directing a lot of those movies myself, directing myself in them. And a lot of times getting movies made as a director because I was in them, they say, well, if you would be in it, then we'll make it. And also, I think it's just sort of like something that happened and you don't have control over that.
- [12:02]
David Marchese
The tension between knowing that there were movies that you wanted to make and then you also had opportunities to be in other movies. How alive was that tension for you at the time? Like, do you remember experiences where you might have been thinking, like, oh, I, I want to make this, but this offer to do.
- [12:20]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, right.
- [12:20]
David Marchese
Where there's Along Came Polly or whatever the movie might have been. I'm going to go with that one.
- [12:24]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, sure. And that's a personal choice you make at the time. I mean, I think fear is always a big thing as an actor. I think I saw a q and a with Jeremy Strong, that movie the Apprentice, and somebody asked him, why did you want to do this role? He said, fear. And. And I totally identify with that because fear is what drives you sometimes to go away from something or sometimes to jump into something, depending on where you're at.
- [12:51]
David Marchese
So what was a fear driven decision?
- [12:54]
Ben Stiller
I mean, I think so many decisions are based in. It's underneath. It's like whether or not the fear is gonna push you away from something or you're gonna jump off the cliff with it. I had a chance to do Glengarry Glenross on Broadway. Probably around that long came Polly time. I decided not to do that. I look back, oh, maybe it would've like to have done that. But it's also just where I was at at the time.
- [13:17]
David Marchese
And has what you're afraid of changed over time?
- [13:23]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, I mean, I think as you get Older, it changes everything in terms of, you know, what you look at as what's ahead of you in terms of the things that you think you want to do then really looking at, okay, well, I'm at this point in my life, I'm at this age. You have to think more about, well, do I really want to take this chance right now? How much do I care about what the quote unquote bad result is? And I think as you get older, for me, it's like you care a little bit less about that if you want to do something because you're like, well, why am I letting this intangible thing, which is like, fear of what? It's fear of people saying I suck. Fear of people not going to see it or saying, I mean, what is that? That's still like. And I've experienced that because, as you know, I've had successes and failures and, you know, the day after something doesn't do well, or if it gets bad reviews or people don't go. It's not like anything in your literal life has changed, you know, your real life, your tangible life. It's just how you feel, you know, maybe you feel embarrassed or you feel like I, you know, I damn, I wasn't, you know, I wanted to be the winner. But, you know, winning doesn't always happen, usually doesn't happen. So, you know, how do you live with that? And when you take the chance, it's still important that you took the leap and you went for it. And failure can be in not taking the chance. And as, as you get older, I think that's something that you start to feel. It's like, well, I just want to have this experience while I'm still here.
- [14:56]
David Marchese
Just hearing you talk about your thinking in the context of the audience and also what you want to do. I was just in my mind, I remember how I did one of these interviews with Eddie Murphy and he said he only wants to do projects that he knows will work. Like, he's not interested really in doing something that might be off putting or aliening. If he's going to spend time on doing something, he wants to feel confident that it's going to work. Which doesn't quite sound like how you think about it.
- [15:24]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, I mean, sometimes the audience has to sort of have time to. I feel like this has happened with a bunch of movies I've done, which is it takes the audience a few years to get it. Like Zoolander or something like that, you know, Zoolander, when it came out, was not a big hit. Because what a weird world, what a weird character. But once they became acclimated to it, then it became something that they really liked.
- [15:54]
David Marchese
Reality Bites was the first film you directed. That's a film that really seemed to speak to Gen X both then and still continues to speak to them. Do you think that film is representative of any specific generational values that you hold?
- [16:14]
Ben Stiller
I feel like the film is a timepiece of where we were at that moment in time, as put through a kind of a pop culture lens. And it was written by Helen Childress, who was taking her experience and trying to kind of encapsulate, you know, the issues that she was dealing with. I think I was coming to it more as my character, honestly. You know, the Michael character who was the guy kind of trying to commodify it a little bit and was outside of it a little bit. So in a way, I feel like that's what the movie is like. Helen was Laena and I was Michael, and we improvised a lot as she was rewriting the script when we were working on it. So that was my experience of making that movie. I do feel like generationally, though, the issues in that movie are kind of evergreen sort of issues.
- [17:09]
David Marchese
Oh, I strongly disagree, but.
- [17:10]
Ben Stiller
Really?
- [17:11]
David Marchese
Yeah, really. Well, why do you think they're evergreen?
- [17:13]
Ben Stiller
Well, I just think it's that moment in time where you're having to figure out how to. If you have parents who've supported you or whatever, that you're having to cut the cord and figure out how to go out into the world.
- [17:22]
David Marchese
Yeah, yeah.
- [17:23]
Ben Stiller
And find yourself. Tell me.
- [17:24]
David Marchese
No, I 100% agree with that aspect of it. The aspect of the film that, to me feels very much like a time capsule and representative of a specific Gen X attitude that has basically disappeared is the anxiety about the possibility of selling out. And I think now young, creative people, it's like, maybe it's just because they've realized it's so hard to actually make a living. The concept of selling out is a total phantom that doesn't exist for people.
- [17:54]
Ben Stiller
Anymore because it's almost like it's like.
- [17:57]
David Marchese
Anybody'S gonna give me money, of course I'll take it.
- [18:00]
Ben Stiller
But I think a lot of that is because of how social media has changed how people can upload their lives to everyone directly, you know, And I.
- [18:09]
David Marchese
Think I would know what's the connection? I don't.
- [18:11]
Ben Stiller
Just that she was making a little documentary on her video camera that then she had to give to Michael to put on, you know, the MTV version of what that was. And now you just go straight to the Internet. And I think young people are expected to do that now and to create their own movie and get it out into the world. I think it plays into what you're saying, which is it's almost like if you're not selling out, you're not doing what you should be doing. And I feel that with my kids. I see that pressure on them when I see their friends and what they post and their image of what they put out to the world. And it's a responsibility and if you don't do that, you're not part of what's going on. So I feel like there's almost pressure to have to do that.
- [18:58]
David Marchese
And another project I think you wanted to make for a long time was an adaptation of what Makes Sammy Run. Bud Schulberg novel. You tried for years to get that made.
- [19:10]
Ben Stiller
Yeah.
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David Marchese
And I thought this. So for people who don't know the book, it's a story about a Jewish character named Sammy Glick who's sort of a conniving, amoral striver in Hollywood and his unquenchable thirst to succeed in that world. And I thought that's an interesting movie for a young, successful Jewish man in Hollywood to want to make. What was it about that book that. That resonated with you?
- [19:42]
Ben Stiller
Well, I thought the story was kind of, you know, it's this prototypical story of a guy who comes from nothing to do whatever it takes to get to the top. And I think Bud Schulberg always saw it as kind of a metaphor for anybody who wants to get to the top. That mindset of it doesn't matter, you just do whatever it takes. That's why I think the novel resonates. I think there's always been a resistance to it and I can understand why. For a long time I was very frustrated because I felt like, well, this story should be made. But the flip side of it is that it can be looked at as you're shining a spotlight on, on a Jewish character who is this self hating Jew who is willing to do whatever. And, you know, do you think that.
- [20:31]
David Marchese
Was the resistance to.
- [20:33]
Ben Stiller
I think so. I think. I mean, partly. I think so. I think it's always been hard to make show business stories, you know, in Hollywood because people in the business feel like the outside world isn't interested in the inside baseball of it. Though I've always been attracted to those kinds of stories and I do. You know, it's funny, I think about it now and I would love to see that story made What I worry about is how people would interpret it on the outside, you know, and that's. As a Jewish person, do you think.
- [21:04]
David Marchese
There are ways in which after October 7, being Jewish in Hollywood has been trickier to navigate or have things felt different?
- [21:15]
Ben Stiller
I think just being a Jewish person feels different. And I think it's an environment that growing up, I grew up in an incredibly sheltered Upper west side environment. I never experienced anti Semitism. I heard about it, but I was, you know, never around it. So the reality of that, to start feeling that now where other people have felt it their whole lives in other parts of the world and, you know, in other parts of our country, and to see the spike and the rise in anti Semitic violence is, you know, something that I never thought I'd experience in my lifetime. And feeling what my kids are feeling too, and how incredibly politicized it all is and how complicated it is, because with the social media universe and all of it, it's almost impossible to really talk about it in a really level headed sort of way where you can hear other people's ideas because people are just kind of like shouting at each other on social media. But the reality of it is really frightening.
- [22:20]
David Marchese
Yeah, but has any of that reality in any way filtered into your working life?
- [22:30]
Ben Stiller
I don't know. I mean, I think it's also a choice of as a creative person where you want to put your energy, you know, in terms of the business. I think there have always been those misconceptions of like, you know, of what? Of how, you know, Jews are involved in Hollywood. And that's always been a thing. And a lot of that also is, I think, a result of the fact that there were a lot of successful Jewish people who have started the Hollywood movie industry. And so it's sort of like folded in on itself. But the reality of that world now is so completely different. It's just, you know, the Jewish population is so small. You know, I, it took me a long time to even realize that in my sheltered world, you know, what is it, 20 million Jews in the whole world or something like that. So the, the proportion of success, I mean, it's, it's a very tough thing to navigate. And I feel like right now in the world there's just so much hate and antipathy that's out there. And it's not limited to anti Semitism, but that, that's a, you know, that's something Jewish people are feeling, but people are feeling it all over too.
- [23:43]
David Marchese
I have no smooth segue to get out of the Anti Semitism portion of this conversation.
- [23:49]
Ben Stiller
So I'm just going to take a hard left. All right.
- [23:56]
David Marchese
In my reading of your career around 2010, there's a real change happens. Starting 2010, you really did a lot fewer of kind of like the big broad comedies and. And you started to do films like you did, I think three Noah Baumbach movies. You did Secret Life of Walter Mitte, Brad Status, and these are all movies that are really about middle aged guys working through the big questions. Was doing those films the result of a conscious decision that you wanted to start doing a different kind of film and stop doing what you had been doing before?
- [24:37]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, I think around that time I moved back to New York. I'd been living in LA for 20 years and we decided to move back here where I grew up and I wanted to try to spend more time at home. But also it was. Yeah, it was like a point where for me, really, where it kind of changed in terms of my outlook was after Zoolander 2, it was the feeling of like, oh, okay, this is what everybody wants this. All right, I'm gonna do it. And I had fun doing it. And then nobody wanted it. And I was like, well, but you said you wanted it. And really, was it that bad? That was where I really was like, oh, I have to make a choice here where I'm not gonna do that if I wanna do these other things and wait for the right opportunity to come up and not go off and oh, if somebody's offering me Zoolander 3, then I'm gonna go do that. But Zoolander 2 gave me the gift of nobody offering me Zoolander 3 because nobody wanted it. It was like, okay, here's some space. I have to live with that feeling, the feeling of not winning. And also, you know, my marriage wasn't in a great place and there was a lot going on that. That really, for me, kind of, I think I got a little bit clearer on what I wanted and what my priorities were. But I think 2010 was sort of like the beginning of that. Moving out of la.
- [25:58]
David Marchese
Yeah. You. You mentioned your marriage was in a bad place and you and your wife, Christine Taylor separated for a while and reconciled. And I saw her talking on Drew Barrymore's talk show and she brought up the idea of sort of the separation reconciliation being the result of what she called adult growth spurts, which I thought was a nice way of putting it. What was your growth spurt during that time?
- [26:26]
Ben Stiller
Well, when we separated, it was just, you know, having space to see what our relationship was what my life felt like when we weren't in that relationship. How much I cared about my family, how much I loved our family unit. I think we both, as she said, we both kind of took care of ourselves separately and. And eventually it was. I think it was like three or four years, really, that we weren't together. But we always were connected. And in my mind, I never didn't want us to be together. And I don't know where Christine was. You'd have to ask her. But Covid put us all together in the same house.
- [27:10]
David Marchese
It's an act of God.
- [27:11]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. And it was almost like a year of living in the same house before we were actually together. But I'm so grateful for it. And not that many people do come back together when they separate. I mean, a lot of people do, I'm sure. But there's nothing like that when you do come back. Because you really do have so much more of an appreciation for what you have. Because we know we could not have it too.
- [27:36]
David Marchese
My understanding is you're working on a documentary about hero parents. Anne Meara, Jerry Stiller, the comedy team. People don't know the comedy team. They certainly know that your dad played George Costanza's dad on Seinfeld. And I was thinking about the fact you're working on a documentary about them. And it sort of occurred to me that kind of outside of like a therapeutic setting, there aren't a lot of opportunities for people to sort of, in a structured way, sit and think about their parents. So what has working on the documentary revealed to you about your understanding of your parents?
- [28:18]
Ben Stiller
Well, I think it's. It's really made me look at my own relationship to my parents more than anything. Every time I want to make the movie about them, I'm realizing it's all kind of reflecting back on my own issues that I have with them and how much, you know, I mean, you're right. Like, I feel so fortunate that I have all this footage of my parents and our family from these Super 8 movies that my dad took and then I took and recordings my dad made. Hours and hours and hours talking into a tape machine, talking with my mother as they were writing sketches. Or sometimes he'd just record us just cause he wanted to have our voices. But I see the world I grew up in. I see my father. I was just thinking about it this morning just how much of I love my father, but also that tension of not wanting to be my father. But everybody loves my father. And so I would love to be loved as My father is loved because he was a lovely person. But then there's also the thing of, like, oh, but I'm me. And that was something I was feeling since I was, you know, a teenager. And I. And I really.
- [29:37]
David Marchese
The conflict between understanding that people had affection for your father and also your not wanting to be your father, but wanting people's affection.
- [29:46]
Ben Stiller
I think, no, I think it was more just wanting to individuate for my father, wanting to be my own person, you know, like not being into their comedy and their thing, you know, I wanted to be a serious director. And then when I discovered comedy, it was. Well, it wasn't like what they did. It was like, I like SCTV or Saturday Night Live, you know, and not until I was older, I able to really just appreciate what they did. But all the while, my parents were so supportive, especially my dad. My mom was a little bit of a tougher audience, and I think my dad was very overprotective and concerned about the rejection in show business that you have to deal with. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's a hard thing when you look up to a. A parent so much in terms of just their, like, what their essence is. Like, Jerry's essence was so sweet that, you know, you look at. I look at myself and go, you know, am I that person? You know, am I as good as he was? Because I've. And maybe that's a good thing to want to aspire to, but I feel like that's what he was.
- [30:54]
David Marchese
Are you?
- [30:55]
Ben Stiller
I don't know. I mean, I try, but, you know, also, by the way, he obviously wasn't perfect, but he, you know, he wasn't one of those guys who was like, you know, win, win, win. That wasn't his drive. His drive was just to kind of create and to try to protect his family and to be loved. Because he came from a background of parents who were very poor, and there was a lot of fighting between his parents and the depression, and he wasn't nurtured like that. But he didn't go on to not nurture his children. He went the opposite way. He was so nurturing. So, you know, that's what he was.
- [31:38]
David Marchese
Wait, so you're sitting on a couch. So this is all appropriate for this kind of.
- [31:41]
Ben Stiller
I'm lie down now.
- [31:43]
David Marchese
But that was your dad.
- [31:44]
Ben Stiller
Yeah.
- [31:45]
David Marchese
Your mom was a tougher critic.
- [31:46]
Ben Stiller
She was. She was. She was, you know, Irish Catholic, very funny. I think I actually share more of my mom's sense of humor than my dad's. She was a serious actor who then my dad drew into comedy, who came up with the idea for them to do their comedy act to make money after they'd been married for five or six years in the 50s. And I think she never loved comedy. She was very good at it. I think she was more naturally adept at it than my dad, actually. My dad was funny, but his dream was to be Eddie Cantor or Jack Benny. My mother was more of, like, a polished stage, you know, like at nightclubs. She. She really just knew how to work a comedy. And she wrote plays and she wrote plays. And she was more interested in writing and reading and acting and different kinds of things. She, I think, always was like, when she saw me doing comedy, she was like, oh, that's great. But I like. You know, I liked Greenberg or I liked Permanent Midnight. Yeah.
- [32:48]
David Marchese
Yeah. There's a New Yorker profile of you from around the time of Walter Mitty. And the writer mentioned that you had been developing a project. I wanna say it was called the Mirror. Yeah. About a Hollywood success who was worried he was a sellout and wanted to become like, a truth teller or something. And kind of the writer made hay of this as, like, a parallel for you. But the little tidbit in there is that your mom vetoed the project.
- [33:16]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, right.
- [33:17]
David Marchese
What was that about?
- [33:18]
Ben Stiller
Well, in the idea of the movie was. That's funny. I'd forgotten about that. My family had to play my family. And also there was a psychiatrist who sort of like, kicks off the whole thing, I think, like, gives my character a pill or something. But I wanted Gene Wilder to play that. That guy. And I sent it to my mom and to Gene Wilder, and they both nixed it. Gene Wilder, he's like, I think you're great. But this. I do not like this project. I thought it was really good. My mother didn't want to go there. Now, that's very atypical of her because when I was starting out, like, audition tapes or I did an audition reel for Saturday Night Live where I had my parents in it, and they were in so many things that I did, it was never a thing. But for some reason, that specific role. And maybe it was. What? I don't know. I wish I could ask her.
- [34:11]
David Marchese
Just. You mentioned Saturday Night Live. You were on it sort of famously or infamously for about four episodes or something like that because you kind of wanted to make short films for them and you could tell it wasn't gonna work out. But the thing that I'm curious about is what is the conversation like when you go into Lorne Michaels office and tell him, I'm leaving the show that every young comedian in the country aspires to being on. What was his response?
- [34:43]
Ben Stiller
He was like, okay, that's my lore. Men's gonna do what men's going to do. It wasn't great, but I knew that I couldn't do well there. Cause I wasn't great at live performing. Like, my mom would have been better on that show. I got too nervous. I didn't enjoy it. And I wanted to be making short films. So, like, in the moment, there were reasons why. And I had this opportunity to do this MTV show. And it had been a dream to be on Saturday Night Live. But, like, looking back on it, I don't remember exactly how I had the, you know.
- [35:18]
David Marchese
Fortitude. Gumption.
- [35:19]
Ben Stiller
I was gonna say. Yeah, I know the word. You were gonna say gumption. Thank you very much to do that. But for whatever reason, I followed that instinct.
- [35:27]
David Marchese
Sorry to jump around, but I read your dad's memoir.
- [35:32]
Ben Stiller
Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Married to Laughter.
- [35:34]
David Marchese
Married to Laughter. And there was a little segment in there that I wanted to read to you. And I have a question about. It's nothing weird. This is supposed to be heartwarming and sort of whimsical. Here at the end, he wrote, what words of wisdom can I give my children? See past the hype and the glitz and ask yourself why you want to perform. It may take years to arrive at the answers, but understanding the reasons will help you to keep the dream alive and reach your goals. Do you feel like you understand your reasons for why you do what you do?
- [36:11]
Ben Stiller
That's interesting, because when I hear that, I know that my dad knew why he wanted to perform. That's a good question. I think so. I mean, for me, I think it's about trying to get closer to expressing my true self. Trying to somehow make something that feels truthful and real and maybe is just. Yeah. More opening up myself in a way that's closer to the bone. And trying to have the sort of courage to kind of go, keep going for that. For me, it's figuring it out is like, just what life is about. It's the big question, like, what are we here for?
- [37:01]
David Marchese
I don't.
- [37:01]
Ben Stiller
I haven't figured that out yet. And I think as I continue to try to figure that out while I'm still here, I feel like that's what I want to try to make the work that I do about, too.
- [37:11]
David Marchese
I probably should have brought this up when it's more thematically Appropriate. But I thought maybe it's a good place to end also. But I love a movie you made mid-90s called Heavyweights.
- [37:21]
Ben Stiller
Yeah.
- [37:21]
David Marchese
Which is about a lunatic named Tony Purkis.
- [37:25]
Ben Stiller
Purkis, yeah.
- [37:26]
David Marchese
Played by you. Who buys, for lack of a better term, a fat camp.
- [37:31]
Ben Stiller
This is a Disney movie, by the way.
- [37:33]
David Marchese
A Disney movie they're not making. It essentially tries to torture the kids into losing weight. My sister and I used to watch the movie over and over again. We had the VHS tape. I still remember lines from it, which I'm not gonna subject you to. And then about 10 years later, dodgeball, you did a character named White Goodman, who's also the bad guy who's trying to sort of professionalize a dodgeball league. Those are the. It's essentially the same character you transposed from one film into the other, right?
- [38:07]
Ben Stiller
Shh. Damn. No, they're not. They're totally different. One has blonde hair and one has really dark hair. One has a mustache even.
- [38:16]
David Marchese
The voice is the same.
- [38:17]
Ben Stiller
The voice is basically the same.
- [38:20]
David Marchese
So it's not just me.
- [38:21]
Ben Stiller
Thank you. No, I mean, it was like, you know, like, those are two, like, the most fun experiences I've ever had on movies, playing those characters. And we did the reading for Dodgeball. Ross and Thurber had written the movie and was directing it. And I was like, I don't know, like, what voice to do. I don't have that many different voices. And I kind of just went into that voice and he's like, that's great. I was like, well, I kind of did that in heavyweights. It's like, oh, it's all right.
- [38:46]
Lori Leibovich
Whatever.
- [38:46]
Ben Stiller
And I honestly never thought. Not that I was like, trying to pull one over. It's just like, I never thought anybody would really, like, you know, 30 years later be talking to me. Here I am on the New York Times about calling out heavyweights in dodgeball. It just wasn't in my. Really?
- [39:04]
David Marchese
You didn't think about that?
- [39:05]
Ben Stiller
Yeah.
- [39:06]
David Marchese
Poor long term thinking.
- [39:08]
Ben Stiller
If I could go back. But no. Yeah. It was just sort of like, all right, I'll just go for it and do this one.
- [39:15]
David Marchese
Well, thank you very much for taking all the time today. I appreciate it.
- [39:18]
Ben Stiller
Yeah, it was great talking to you, man.
- [39:19]
David Marchese
And, you know, we're supposed to talk again. We do, right?
- [39:23]
Ben Stiller
You do the little follow up. Yeah, right.
- [39:25]
David Marchese
Yeah, yeah. Great. Please don't refer to it as the little follow up.
- [39:32]
Ben Stiller
Isn't it usually like a phone call or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [39:34]
David Marchese
But I take. I really think about it.
- [39:36]
Ben Stiller
Sorry.
- [39:44]
David Marchese
After the break, I call Ben back with a few more questions about how comedy has changed.
- [39:49]
Lori Leibovich
I think it was just like kind of a, I don't want to say a more innocent time 20 years ago because it wasn't that innocent, but weirdly, kind of it was.
- [40:05]
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David Marchese
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- [41:04]
Ben Stiller
Hi, this is Lori Leibovich, editor of well at the New York Times. Everything that our readers get when they dig into a well article has been vetted. Our reporters are consulting experts doing the research so that you can make great decisions about your physical health and your mental health. We take our reporting extra seriously because we know New York Times subscribers are counting on us. If you already subscribe. Thank you. If you'd like to subscribe, go to nytimes.com subscribe.
- [41:43]
David Marchese
Hi Ben. How are you?
- [41:44]
Ben Stiller
Hey.
- [41:45]
Lori Leibovich
That's the follow up. The little follow up.
- [41:47]
David Marchese
Just because you said little follow up, I'm going to rake you over the coals, Ben. I'm determined to elicit a nugget of severance information that will make the obsessives on the Internet go nutty. So without giving too much away, there's an episode in the season, in the upcoming season where someone, and it's not clear who, is walking and whistling a melody, which I believe is the melody of Gordon Lightfoot's the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Is that correct?
- [42:23]
Lori Leibovich
I don't think that's a spoiler to say that.
- [42:26]
Ben Stiller
Wait, but do you deny, do you.
- [42:28]
David Marchese
Deny that that song's lyrics are perhaps a Rosetta stone for Deciphering exactly what Severance and Lumen are up to.
- [42:39]
Lori Leibovich
I'm not gonna say anything. And, you know, I want to leave all. All options open.
- [42:44]
Ben Stiller
But also. No.
- [42:45]
Lori Leibovich
I'm a Gordon Lightfoot fan, I think.
- [42:47]
Ben Stiller
Oh, really? Oh, my God, yes.
- [42:49]
Lori Leibovich
And I used Carefree highway at the end of Escape A Dannemora. And I will hopefully always be able to use his music and movies because I think he's just one of the great artists of our time.
- [43:01]
David Marchese
Let me shift gears. I was thinking about how when you came back to a certain kind of comedy with Zoolander 2, the way you put it was that was an example of you thinking people wanted something, you gave it to them, and then it turned out they didn't want it. And it made me curious if, sort of, despite Zoolander 2, if you have gotten or still get pitches for a new Fockers movie.
- [43:25]
Ben Stiller
Yes.
- [43:28]
Lori Leibovich
Yes.
- [43:29]
Ben Stiller
The interesting thing, because it was, you.
- [43:31]
Lori Leibovich
Know, came out a couple years ago, I think that I was, like, the same age that De Niro was when we did the first movie, and kind of like, what would have evolved in that, you know, that now that I. My character, that Greg would have kids, maybe one of them is getting married. So it kind of, you know, was an interesting sort of mirror to the first movie. But for me, I guess I look at it differently as a. As a director than as an actor. And if there was something that came together on Fockers that everybody liked that was fun, you know, I'm open to that. But I think maybe for me, as a director, it's. My head is in a different place, you know, probably even post Dannemora and severance and stuff, basically.
- [44:13]
David Marchese
Are you saying sort of the stakes feel a little bit lower when you're just acting in it?
- [44:18]
Ben Stiller
No, it's just a. Well, no, it's just different.
- [44:20]
Lori Leibovich
Like a different creative experience for me, I think. You know, like, it's. It's really more like my personal interest as a filmmaker, I think, right now is, like, kind of like. I don't know, Like, I think it's. I think it's really hard to. It's really hard to make a comedy. You know, in a way, like, when I'm. As a. When you're directing, I kind of like the freedom also of not having to direct a comedy where you can. Any comedy that comes into something that's dramatic is usually welcome if the tone is clear, but it's sort of like a bonus, you know, and not an expectation. And if I'm really being honest, like, that's Part of it, too.
- [45:05]
David Marchese
And I was thinking about how when we were talking about your comedies from the 2000s, you said there were a lot of great things in them that we don't have now, and also that you don't know if that can be recreated. But what don't we have now in comedy that we did have back then?
- [45:24]
Lori Leibovich
I think it's just the freedom. The freedom to not worry about how something was going to get interpreted. And I do think it was sort of, in a weird way was a more. It was a freer time because there was less analysis given to. Even to the people who were making the comedy. I think it was just like kind of a. I don't want to say a more innocent time 20 years ago, because it wasn't that innocent, but. But weirdly, kind of it was, you know.
- [45:55]
David Marchese
You know, I just was thinking about this lately in a different context and thinking about how there's like this whole universe of comedy podcasts now where people are saying whatever the hell they want to say, seemingly with no regard for who's going to be upset about it or not. I just wonder, is it your experience that comedy feels trickier?
- [46:21]
Lori Leibovich
Well, I can only speak from my own. Yeah, you know, my own experience, which is I. I definitely am aware of that. But again, I also never really thought about it that way back in the 2000s, too. I don't think I was ever. I think I'm the same person I was on that regard, like, in terms of, you know, I wasn't as. I wasn't the guy who was going to go out there and, you know, say whatever. And like, I think I always had that self awareness that probably just was part of who I am.
- [46:55]
David Marchese
I'm trying to sort of wrap things up with a bit of a bow here, but I saw somewhere that your ambition early on was to try to make movies as good as Albert Brooks's movies. Have you lived up to that?
- [47:10]
Lori Leibovich
Oh, God, no. I mean, he. Because, you know, he. He just basically, you know, like, created it all on his own. And I think he had a Persona that he, you know, developed. And I think, I guess, you know, you could say Woody Allen did it too. But for me, there was just something about the tone of his humor that is so unique. So, yeah, for me, the answer is no. I mean, I think I've been able to make some things that I feel proud of. And I. And I love being a movie director and actor and all that, but I feel like what he did is unique and really has not ever been equaled.
- [47:51]
David Marchese
Do you have specific ambitions for what you do with your career?
- [47:57]
Ben Stiller
I mean, I really just want to.
- [47:58]
Lori Leibovich
Keep on getting closer to like making something that I feel is as good as, you know, it can be and that and is as honest as it can be. That, to me is, you know, really satisfying.
- [48:13]
David Marchese
Ben, thank you very much for taking all the time to talk with me. I appreciate it.
- [48:18]
Lori Leibovich
Yeah, I've enjoyed it. And this, this was a good follow up. I feel like it wasn't like a little whatever, you know.
- [48:25]
David Marchese
Well, good luck with, good luck with your, your little TV show.
- [48:28]
Lori Leibovich
My little thing, your little New York Times thing.
- [48:31]
Ben Stiller
You got Dave. Good.
- [48:39]
David Marchese
That's Ben Stiller. The second season of Severance airs January 17th on Apple TV. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orme. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sophia Landman, original music by Dan Powell, Diane Wong and Marion Lozano, photography by Philip Montgomery. Our senior booker is Priya Matthew and Seth Kelly is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Alison Benedikt. Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Matty Masiello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schumann and Sam Dolnick. If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to the interview. Wherever you get your podcasts to read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com theinterview and you can email us anytime@the interviewytimes.com Next week, I talk with Curtis Yarvin, the controversial blogger whose ideas have gained traction among powerful Republican figures.
- [49:38]
Ben Stiller
The question of basically, is democracy good or bad? Is, I think, a secondary question to is it what we actually have?
- [49:49]
David Marchese
I'm David Marchese and this is the interview from the New York Times Foreign.
- [50:04]
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