There’s an old saying in Hollywood: It’s not the length of your film, it’s how you use it.
BEN STILLERThere’s an old saying in Hollywood: It’s not the length of your film, it’s how you use it.
BEN STILLERJim Carrey, a comic genius, has a harder time overcoming the public’s desire for him to be funny simply because he’s so good at it.
BEN STILLERI was a bad student. I liked archaeology actually, I was interested in maybe becoming an archaeologist but I was such a bad student and had such bad grades that I wasn’t going to get into any really good college so I fell back on acting.
BEN STILLERAnd I was like, “Yeah, anything. Twenty-four hours times five is 120 hours. Oh, great, I’ll fill 120 hours of my life with something.” So I did that and it was fun, and then I did Flirting with Disaster.
BEN STILLERWhen I was growing up, This is Spinal Tap [1984] was the ultimate comedy, and it was the kind of thing I wanted to do. But you get to a point with parody where you can’t go much further because ultimately it’s feeding off of somebody else’s creativity.
BEN STILLERI enjoy the work I do in comedies. It’s a valid test of your creative abilities.
BEN STILLERI don’t think the public is dying to see me necessarily be funny all the time.
BEN STILLERI don’t think know if anything’s going to translate anywhere. You’re making a movie, you hope it’s going to be funny, you can’t think about how it’s going to go over.
BEN STILLERPaul 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.
BEN STILLERThere’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!
BEN STILLERGod was showing off when he made you.
BEN STILLERIt’s weird that people expect me to be funny. I find it a real burden when I’m expected to be humorous on talk shows.
BEN STILLERI grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy.
BEN STILLERFashion is so over the top.
BEN STILLERZoolander was more of my own sensibility.
BEN STILLERI 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.
BEN STILLER