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.
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.
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.
My parents used to throw great New Year’s Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment.
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.
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.
I love New York. I was sad, depressed and incredibly moved by our fellow countrymen and what they’ve done. I wanted to give people a chance to see something funny, have a distraction.
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.
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.
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 Quote - 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/when-i-was-growing-up-this-is-spinal-tap-1984-was-.jpg)
