Sometimes I wondered whether I hadn’t let my career get confined to one direction, but lately I’ve decided to accept the fact that I have this opportunity to be successful doing comedies.
BEN STILLERI grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy.
More Ben Stiller Quotes
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I recently watched that Lucie Arnaz-produced documentary [Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie, 1992] about her parents [Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz], and I saw so much of my own childhood there.
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If you look at my eyes when I’m dancing, you’ll see that glazed look.
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As a kid I had dreams about being successful, thinking it would be cool. Then, when I was in my 20s, I really thought I had it much more figured out than I do now.
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There’s always an element of fear that you need to work a lot until people get sick and tired of you or finally figure out that you’re a fraud after all!
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I don’t think the public is dying to see me necessarily be funny all the time.
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When we were visiting New York City, I took my kids to the same playground where I went growing up. It was fun to feel that connection of having gone there as a kid and being there as a parent.
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I’m Jewish, but my mom’s Catholic, so the guilt area is covered. I have the highest expectations, along with the lowest. I tried to put as much of myself as possible in Reality Bites, but in terms of my humor, I’m still trying to figure out what my sensibility is. It’s a process, really.
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People like to define you through what they’ve seen you do. There are aspects of my personality, I guess, that come through on-screen, but I don’t sit around thinking, ‘I’ve been a bumbling suitor all my life.’
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I’ve had a very good career and I’m grateful that the public has had some level of acceptance and appreciation of my work.
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I don’t even want to think of myself as an actor because it’s such an insecure place to go.
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I think you never want to have to go into the scene having to improvise; you want to make sure its working on the page. But I do like to have the ability to try stuff just in the moment, to give it some sort of spontaneity.
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I was staying on [writer/director/actor] Eric Schaeffer’s couch in New York, and he said, “I’ve got this movie [If Lucy Fell]. Can you do five days on it?”
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Paul is Starsky, and I met him before shooting. He was very kind and encouraged us to go with what we wanted to do. It was very sweet to see them back with the car after 25 years.
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I don’t need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines !
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I have a lot of nervous energy. Work is my best way of channelling that into something productive unless I want to wind up assaulting the postman or gardener.
BEN STILLER