Whatever talent I had, I’m sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.
BEN STILLERIt was Mick Jagger’s idea.The other one was Simple Plan, based on a novel by Scott Smith. It’s a great book – really stark, not a comedy – about a guy who finds $4 million in a plane crash and decides to keep it.
More Ben Stiller Quotes
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And 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.
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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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The cliches are that it’s the most generic Starsky and Hutch plot you can find.
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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’m always willing to endure humiliation on behalf of my characters.
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The failure of The Cable Guy impacted my career. I had to start writing and acting again.
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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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When you have kids you want to be able to go to movies and take the family too, and actually all enjoy it together. I don’t think there are that many great, live action family movies that everybody can enjoy.
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When I didn’t have a family, I was much more of a workaholic. I still like to work, but I also want to be home with them. As you get older, you realize you need balance. If it’s not fun, what’s the point?
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I actually started working on Madagascar before my daughter was born.
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I’d love to travel more. I really look forward to traveling with my kids. I’m just waiting for them to want to travel with me.
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There’s a sense here in L.A. that everybody’s aware of everybody all the time. It’s funny but we choose it. People who are here want to be here, including me.
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I don’t devalue comedy as compared to drama. Not one bit.
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When 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.
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It’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 STILLER