“Don’t put Ben Stiller in comedies anymore”: Actor recalls the peak of popularity and the other side of the coin

Ben Stiller, a guest on the New York Times podcast “The Interview,” talks about his career and admits he still doesn’t understand why he became such a popular comedy movie star in the late 1990s and early 2000s, following his work in 1996’s Dijoncte, 1999’s The Double Shot of Mary This year and I and my father-in-law in 2000, two comedies that won Over $330 million at the worldwide box office and made Stiller a successful actor. But with success came criticism.

“I remember opening the LA Times and there was a writer who wrote a letter saying, “God, stop putting Ben Stiller in comedies.”,” Stiller said (via Variety ). “I said to myself: I don’t know, I’m here, I love doing what I do. But only in hindsight can I say, “Wow, something happened that I was lucky to be a part of.” But I don’t know what was the spirit of that time. You can look at the comedies of the 2000s, they had a specific genre, tone, and there were a lot of good things in those comedies that we don’t have today. I don’t know if you can recreate that.“

early career

Stiller’s film success was sparked by his acclaimed television work on The Ben Stiller Show, which only began when he decided to leave Saturday Night Live after only four episodes. Ben Stiller Indeed joined the NBC sketch comedy series as a featured writer and performer in 1989. He recalls SNL boss Lorne Michaels reacting to the news: “Ben is going to do what Ben is going to do.“

“I knew I wouldn’t make it there because I wasn’t good at live performances“, continued the actor about leaving the show. “I was too nervous. I didn’t like it and wanted to make short films. So in time there were reasons and I had the opportunity to do this show on MTV. My dream was to go on Saturday Night Live, but looking back, I don’t remember exactly how I got the courage, but somehow I followed that instinct.“

different motivations

Ben Stiller also told the Times that he has never been overly strategic throughout his career. For example, he decided to play Night at the Museum not because he thought it would start a new saga, but for one simple reason:I grew up with a natural history museum and I thought, “If I was a kid, I would love that,” and it would be fun to do that.“

Night at the museum It went on to become a franchise, a huge success grossing $1.3 billion for three films. Although the motivations for creating sequels became more commercial, for this Ben Stiller All three movies were mostly fun.

“I’m not going to refuse to work with Robin Williams or Sean LevyHe explained about making the third opus. “The only thing that bothered me was that I loved making other types of films as a filmmaker and I didn’t really have the time to do that.“

But at this point in his career, the actor now has a philosophy that guides him: “JI’m at this point in my life: do I really want to take this chance now? How much do I care what the outcome will be, quote unquote, bad? We care a little less. The next day something doesn’t come out or there are bad reviews, it’s not like nothing has changed in your life. That’s just how you feel. You feel embarrassed or think, “Damn, I wanted to be a winner.” But victory does not always happen. As a rule, this does not happen. So how do you live with it?“

Ben Stiller hit the press to promote Season 2 of Severance, which premiered on January 17th and is now available to watch on Apple TV+.