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.’
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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I grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy.
BEN STILLER -
The big-name stars . . . are always going to be playing what they’ve played before if they want to remain so-called A-list stars. That’s why someone like Johnny Depp is doing more interesting roles not caring about the size of the movie.
BEN STILLER -
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.
BEN STILLER -
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 STILLER -
I think this whole celebrity world is weird anyway. Weird and funny and kind of pathetic and yet so right for parody.
BEN STILLER -
Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.
BEN STILLER -
I’m just not a naturally cheery person. I’m naturally moody. I know that from people who spend a lot of time with me. People who spend a lot of time with me may not wish to spend a lot more time with me.
BEN STILLER -
I 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 STILLER -
I had two projects that fell apart during preproduction. The first one was this movie that Judd Apatow and I had written about two guys following the Rolling Stones. It was going to be half concert film, half pseudo-documentary.
BEN STILLER -
A eugoogoolizer…one who speaks at funerals…Or did you think I was too stupid to know what a eugoogooly was?
BEN STILLER -
I’m always willing to endure humiliation on behalf of my characters.
BEN STILLER -
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?”
BEN STILLER -
You’re freaked out that you’re going to be having a child, and once you’re looking after your daughter, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.
BEN STILLER -
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.
BEN STILLER -
Zoolander was more of my own sensibility.
BEN STILLER








