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.
BEN STILLERIt was a mixed blessing to have famous parents. It was tough to go to auditions and be bad, since I couldn’t be anonymous.
More Ben Stiller Quotes
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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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Maybe forced retirement isn’t necessary after all.
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Jim 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.
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You have to stay in character in between takes.
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It’s great to work with the people who make you laugh and who are funnier than I am.
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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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I think the most serious genre is the thing you’re going to get the most out of. If you’re trying to satirise a comedy, it’s hard to do that – it doesn’t really work as well. But I love the war movie genre and I’m a fan of all those movies that are part of what this movie is.
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There’s an old saying in Hollywood: It’s not the length of your film, it’s how you use it.
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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.
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It 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.
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I wanted to be funny for people who didn’t care about fashion at all, to just to kind of exist as a silly character.
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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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All those rumors about her being underweight are trash. She’s [Calista Flockhart] gorgeous.
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I’m always willing to endure humiliation on behalf of my characters.
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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.
BEN STILLER