Ben Stiller
Appearances
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
I couldn't believe that they were putting it on the air because there was nobody from the show in it. And it was Jim Downey.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
I was just sort of like, Honestly, I've probably talked to you about this before, that, you know, it was for me trying to do what Albert Brooks, who I think was ahead of his time for sure. Very much so, yeah. In terms of like what he did, his first movie, Real Life, which was about reality television and making fun of it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And what he had done on the show and watching that when I was younger and wanting to do that kind of thing.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah, he wanted to have big, thick forearms that were hairy. He wanted to be Jewish. And he wanted to. And he wanted to dance. And he wanted to dance. Again, Jewish.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
No, I was, I mean, it's a strange set of circumstances the way that this happened. We had done this little short for the MTV Movie Awards where I played as Stuntman. And that's where we, and we had met a couple of times over the years before that, but then we had a great time doing that together and had stayed in touch since then. And I had had this idea for the movie for a long time.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
I had been working on it with Justin Theroux. And Etan Cohen came on later, and we finally had this script, and I had talked to Tom about it. Originally, I wanted Tom to play my part. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. But I was like a little bit, I was like too, really too nervous to ask him to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Sure, yeah, yeah. He has other stuff to do. Yeah. And we were friendly and hanging out. He was so nice and just the greatest guy. But I didn't want to bother him really with this. But eventually I sent him the script and he was like, this is great. I'd love to be a part of this. And I was like, well, maybe you could play, there's like an agent role.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
He's like, well, no, I played an agent before, Jerry Maguire. He said, but it was his idea, this character. He said, you don't have a studio exec in the movie. Perfect.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
So this was like three months or maybe like two and a half months before we started shooting. And Justin and I were like, well, Tom is, you know, would like to be in the movie. And he had this idea of playing a studio exec. And so we went back and came up with Les Grossman and it changed the whole plot of the movie, but made it so much better. I think he has an amazing instinct about movies.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
He's so smart. It's crazy how he's a student of movies and he had this feeling like you need this element to the story. There's no element of what was happening back in the States the whole time in the Tropic Thunder story. We came up with this and Justin wrote a bunch of those monologues where he just goes off.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
But I have to tell you something, because I was actually, for another project I'm working on, this documentary, I was looking through some of this old behind-the-scenes footage from Zoolander that I have. And I found an old, this was literally last week, I found an old cut of the gasoline fight. And I had forgotten that originally... You know, they like he lights the cigarette.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And I think the way it is in the movie I watch for is like he lights cigarette. I go, oh, no. And then boom, they blow up. Yeah. But originally it was he lights a cigarette. I go, oh, no. And you watch the flame kind of like he drops the match on the floor and you see the flame like, you know, kind of track under the car and go up and then it goes up and it starts engulfing each one of them.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And it literally goes on for, I'm not kidding, for like maybe like two minutes where they're just like dancing in pain.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
When you watch it, you see it's awful. And also, this is like, you know, the year 2000. The year 2000. Where for real, like, you know, CG effects where like we had three stuntmen doused in those like the jelly where they put the jelly on and actually be on fire for real doing this. And then the explosion was a real explosion that like knocked the windows out of the buildings across the street.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Cause it was like bigger than our guy thought it was going to be. It's just like a different time.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And for me, that's always been the thing. It's like, I love working with people.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
It was just great. And I have, for this documentary I've been working on, I've been looking at some of that old stuff and it's just, I mean, I'm like, what was I thinking? Because it's such a commitment. And I mean, besides just looking at myself 30 years ago or whatever it is, and just like kind of like my attitude and like coming in with like, hey, I'm going to be funny.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And you know what I mean? Or like, I'm going to like have an attitude with you.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
But you were great. You played along and you were always so open to it. And you were always like, OK, let's go for it and let's do it. Right.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
But also, you know, I was thinking about it cause like I had to do a talk show next week and I was thinking, okay, what am I going to do? And I should think as I, and then I'm like, we'll just, we'll talk and we'll be fine. And I realized, I'm just like, I don't have the energy for that at all anymore.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Old school comedy team, they started in the late 50s, early 60s, and were two young actors who met and fell in love, got married really quickly, and then became starving actors in New York. And after five or six years, tried to figure out a way that they could make some money. And my dad was the guy who always wanted to be a comedian.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Grew up during the Depression, idolized Eddie Cantor and people like that. And my mom just wanted to be a serious actress, but she was really funny and really talented. And my dad had this idea that they should do an act, so he pulled her into it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah, they did Ed Sullivan. I think it's 30, I always get it wrong. It's like 36 or 37 times.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And it kind of made their career. Yes. And that's a big- I had a memory.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
No, I mean, it was, yeah, that's part of the story is that, you know, the pressure that was on them as live performers, which, you know, a pressure, you know, as, you know, doing what you do. It's, but, but for them, not like every time they went out, they had to get re-invited back by Sullivan and they had to do well.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
So, you know, that was, and they had to do like five, it wasn't like two minutes. It was, it was like six or seven minutes, you know.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah. And luckily he liked them, uh, They did a number of different sketches every time they come out, but then they finally hit on this one sketch where basically they played off the fact that my dad was Jewish, my mom was Irish Catholic, and they had these two characters meeting off of computer dating, and it was Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle. Funny now. It's still funny.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And it was controversial at the time because, you know, they didn't know if people would go for it. But Ed Sullivan's wife, he was Catholic, but his wife was Jewish. Oh, wow. Okay. And he loved it. And that was sort of, you know, he kept on inviting them back. And that's, yeah. But, you know, you're in the documentary because...
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
so many of these talk show appearances, you know, I'm kind of also looking at it through the lens of, you know, for me over the years being asked about them, you know, and so many times and really trying to figure out like, well, what is it like? What was it like being their son? You know, who were they?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
What was, you know, what's the core of what my experience was with them as parents and stuff I never really questioned until you start doing something like this and you start looking into it. But we went on with you once, and there was a bit that I was sick, and my mom was taking care of me, and my mom and dad came out with me on the show.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah, and it's so funny. It's so great. No, those are, I mean, you know, the... And then I have to tell you another thing, too. So I've been working on this thing for like four years, and... As a documentary develops, you start to... I've never made a documentary before, and what I'm learning is that as it goes along, you start to figure out really what it's about through the process of editing.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And then you think it's one thing for like a year or two, and then you realize, oh, no, I got to have more of this story or... You know, I have to have more for me. It's been more of like a personally like really like getting into like what is what's my experience with them? Because, you know, that's I'm the one making the movie.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And we we figured out this part of it that I've always felt, which is my dad on Seinfeld was. was, you know, he was so angry, right? And that was what was so funny was to see him blow up and scream and yell.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah, yeah, amazing. And I always felt it was because he had all this suppressed inner rage in him that he kind of kept down He loved my mom. He was the most loving, generous guy. But he had to sublimate a lot. And over the years, doing their act together, the dynamic between them was that she would shut him up a lot. Like, Jerry, Jerry, stop talking, stop talking.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And I have all these clips from the 70s of them on all these talk shows doing that. And I thought, when he finally hit it on Seinfeld, it was because he was able to let out all of that inner... Yeah, it makes sense, yeah. I'm driving home and I put on, you know, your Sirius XM station. And it's literally, it's my, it's a clip of my dad on the show, on your show.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And you're asking him about, you know, Costanza and why is he so funny? And my dad said, this was like, literally, he says, as I turn it on, he says, it's because I had all this inner rage.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah. And I literally like pulled the car over and like, you know, texted my editor. And yeah, isn't that insane? That's fantastic. And we pulled the clip out and it's in the movie along with the other thing. Well, I don't give you permission to use it. That's actually why I'm here.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
I felt like it was my dad and the ether or something, just like this moment was happening.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Which is sweet. He always wanted that. You know, he had had so much success with my mom. But then there was a period of time after, you know, when being a comedy team was not something that was as viable in show business.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
As you go into the 80s and the 90s, it's not like there are shows that are, you know, like the Merv Griffin show or that. Sullivan show. It's just so, they were having to figure out their careers separately. And then, you know, Seinfeld happened for him in his 70s and it changed, you know, it just fulfilled everything that he had wanted.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And my mom, it wasn't as important to her because she was, I think, happier to kind of stay at home and write and, you know, read biographies, do the Sunday Times crossword puzzle. But my dad, that's what was, it was, you know, he was so connected to the audience, to being recognized. It meant so much to him. Because he was so deprived as a kid. His parents, he had such a tough childhood.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
His dad was a cab driver. You know, they moved 13 different times when he was a kid over the course of a few years. And, you know, so he was just like both loving and needy, but like in the most generous way. And, you know, they would like someone come up to him on the street and, you know, recognize him. He'd be with my mom and he'd talk to them for like 15 minutes.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And my mom would be like, Jerry, let's get the fuck out of here.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah, it was. I had a friend in high school who was the band leader and he was really talented. We're still friends, Chris Roebling. And but I was not a great drummer. I really wasn't great at keeping time. What is that documentary about Ginger Baker? Ginger Baker. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
there's a great documentary about him and he's like so like hard ass in terms of like, you gotta, like either you have time or you don't have time.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah, it was a moment that hit me. I always loved directing since I was a kid. Then I was directing a lot of these movies I was in over the years. Except for Cable Guy, I'd never directed anything that I wasn't in, but I always thought of myself more as a director than an actor really. I felt like that was more where I was. I thought I was better at that.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Definitely not a live performer for my short time on SNL. It was so nerve wracking for me to be. It's still anytime doing something live. It's like, you know, I don't enjoy it. I'm happy when it's over and if it goes well, it's great. But so directing to me was always like a comfort area and just happy. You know, it just made me happy. And so It was really after Zoolander 2 came out.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
That was sort of the inflection point where it's like the movie didn't do well. It was not well received. And it was this moment in time where I was like, oh man, what am I going to do? What do I want to do next? And I had some space just to kind of like think about it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And then this project that I'd been developing kind of right when the movie came out, Escape at Dannemora, this limited series about this prison escape in New York that happened in 2015, I think, that was there. And I had the time to work on it because I wasn't doing other stuff. First of all, Escape at Denim, I love that.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Right. And which is daunting, too, you know, because it's like, all right, how do I do this? But it's also to me, it's like sort of the most subjective thing where you just go, OK, you know, how would how do I see this? How would I want to see this? I think when I just got to the idea of like basically like what would I want to see?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
What would because I do love comedy and I love comedies growing up. But I also really love just dramatic movies. So I just started thinking like, well, what would I want to see? And with Escape at Danmore, I was like, yeah, I would love to see this. If it was a movie, limited series, whatever. And the vibe and the feeling, I think for me was so much, like it was so clear that,
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And yeah, then you just take the time and work again collaboratively with people who you think are really talented and you have a similar sensibility. And, you know, you have these partners, you're a cinematographer, production designer, costume designer. Dan Amora was Michael Tolkien and Brett Johnson, these two great writers.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And, you know, the truth of what happened in that story was to me was sort of like what I was like most interested in because it scared me, too, because I'd never done a prison escape before. movie. And I was like, all right, well, I have no idea how to, like, how do I do this and make it real? How do I make it feel authentic?
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And so I just went to the real facts and the, and, and the more I learned about what actually happened and got to the real places, I just said, all right, I'm just going to go for the real thing. Because that was what was fascinating to me about that story was that how could a prison escape like this happen in 2015? That feels like something out of like escape from Alcatraz or something.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And then you realize, oh, there's like the system that's in place at this old prison. You know, it's, it's, there's so many places where, you know, things can go wrong and also the hierarchy of how it works there in terms of with the guards and the prisoners and, uh, you know, the, I mean, the dynamics in a prison, it's a huge prison too.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
So, you know, it's like its own little, you know, city or something. And so the more I talked to real people who experienced it and got the details, I was just, that was really fun for me. And then cinematically, yeah, it's fun to like figure out how to do something that, you know, hopefully look cool and be intriguing.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah, that's great to hear in that the trust you can have for the audience, which you have to sort of like take a sort of runner on and kind of, you know, just go, okay, I'm going to believe that they're going to get this. But, you know, you never go bad when you don't underestimate the audience.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Because people are smart. And especially now, people watch television so closely and they appreciate it so much and they look forward to it. And so that's a great thing to know that people will pick up these little things. But we made the show in a bubble during COVID. uh, with no, you know, no, you, you know, you make the whole series and then you put it out. So there's no feedback.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
It's not like, like the opposite of doing like a late night show or something. Right. Right. You're getting feedback every day, every second.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Right. And so it was one of the, a great experience making it. Um, and then near the end, I was like, Oh, I hope, wow, I hope people, I hope people get it. I hope they like it. This is, we've been working on this thing for a couple of years. Like this could be either good or it could just be like, oh, you know, maybe nobody's going to even see it. Um, and the reaction was, it was great.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
It was great. It's as great as anything I've been a part of. And, you know, and, you know, being in the business so long, like You never know how people are going to react to stuff. And when it's great, it's so great. And when it's not great, it sucks. But it's not that different, the experience of whatever you make, you know, something that gets well received or not.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah, it was a confluence of events that came together. I didn't even know he was going to dance like that. It's dancing. It's the same thing. Tom Cruise dancing like I didn't know Tom Cruise was going to dance like that.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
No, but, you know, that was also, yeah, one of those things where it was just like I was I felt the same way watching it. I was like, oh, this is so cool. And I love watching this. I could watch it over and over again. And I think as a director, you kind of not it's not like you want to like say, oh, my work is great. It's like you as you're almost like an audience.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
You have to act as an audience and you're the sort of like you have to make the choices based on being an audience that you're projecting would be watching something.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
So I was, I love it too. I was like, I love watching. I was like, oh, this is really fun. I could watch this all day.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
There's just a chip that's inserted into their head and it gets triggered when they go in the elevator down to work that they don't remember who they are upstairs.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And they just know their reality at work. And then when they leave, the chip gets triggered again and they don't remember what happened to work.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And it's all Dan Erickson, the creator, the writer, you know, it was the first script that he had produced. It was a spec script he had sent around. And Jackie Cohen at our company read our Reddit and thought it was good. And I read it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Hi, my name is Ben Stiller. And I feel... Hmm. About being Conan O'Brien's friend.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
That was a spec script, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's good to know, right? For aspiring writers. And he had this amazing idea and this amazing facility in terms of how, you know, the tone of his writing. But I agree with you. There's that analogy.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
You know, just the idea for me also of these people are like coming into work and doing their thing and having their banter and kind of, you know, it's very like kind of, you know, like an office comedy kind of vibe. But they don't know who they are. They don't know why they're there. and they don't know what they're doing. To me, that's like the life analogy. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Like, you know, that's where we're all here, you know? And we get settled in and we figure out how to get through and do it, but, like, we don't ultimately know what it's all about. So I thought that was what was always resonating for me.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Well, Dan worked at a door factory when he came out to LA and that was where he got the idea because he was just going crazy every day working at this door factory and he wanted to forget about it.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah. I mean, it's hard. It's hard to get the access for people, you know, to get that that script in someone's hands. But I feel like in this business, everybody's always looking for that next thing, you know, always looking for talent, looking for something that they're going to read and is going to excite them and feel, you know, feel new and different. And that's just always going to be.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Well, she's amazing. I mean... Yeah, you know, I think we're all going through life and trying... I feel like a kinship, seriously, Conan, because I know how hard you work and how much it means to you, but you're also trying to figure out the work-life balance, which is part of the show, too. And... That's, that's important too.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And I hope over the years, over the, I don't know, last whatever, you know, 20, 30 years that I like, I figured out that a little bit more because you have to, there's a point where you work, work it and work and work it, but then you also have to like, also then be able to step back and go, okay, I can only control so much. Yes.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
I've got this little movie I did with David Gordon Green called Nutcrackers. It's on Hulu and that we did like super low budget and it was really fun. Yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
No, you know, your kids are older, too. I mean, my daughter's 22. My son's 19. And they will tell you. They'll give you feedback. Oh, yeah. And how you're doing. And I appreciate it. And we've actually, like working on the documentary, I interviewed both my kids and Christine. And we talked about stuff that's worked in our lives and stuff that hasn't worked in our lives.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And my kids were very honest with me about times when I put my work in front of the family. And I'm very grateful that I'm in a place now where I still have these relationships with them that we can work on and talk about that stuff. And and adjust because it's true. It's cliche, but it's true. But at the end of the day, that's what it's all really about.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
My joy comes from working and being creative, but sharing that with my family and going home and not having anybody to share that with. I've had that because Christine and I were separated for a few years. And, you know, if that's the right thing for people, sometimes that's the right thing.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
But, you know, for me, being together with her and our family being together, I'm so much more appreciative of it. So I feel really grateful.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
By the way, I just have to say also, there is one scene at the end of the last episode of season two of Severance that I'm really looking forward to you seeing. Because I feel like you of all people.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
And it might even seem to others who watch it maybe weird or indulgent, but I feel like it's like made for you.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
It's like the guy that Donald Trump would call into the post. Oh, yeah. Whatever that guy's name was. David Barron or John Barron. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
Thank you. That means a lot because you know how much I respect you. Seriously. No joke. Well, now people think it's a joke because you said no joke. I know. I said no joke too quickly or something.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
and John Mahoney was in it, and Stockard Channing, and Chris Walken, and this amazing cast. I made this short takeoff with these two guys, Steve Klayman and Ralph Howard, and I put all my money into it that I was making from the show. And we made this short and then we were like, okay, let's take it somewhere. And this was, I mean, it's just a proof of how old I am and we are. Not me.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
But there was nowhere to go. There wasn't anything to upload it to at that point.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
Ben Stiller Returns
so it was like a video cassette and lovitz had come to the show he'd seen the show and he uh and i reached out to him because he came backstage afterwards and he knew my parents and was very nice and he you know and i reached out i said hey i've got this short can you is there any way you could get them to take a look at it and he literally like met me in the lobby at 30 rock and took the video cassette upstairs
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And that divide is something that I think you have to sort of wrestle with and acknowledge and figure out and look at your own point of view in that too, and your own prejudice towards people who don't have the same point of view as you.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
But I also feel like there's a reality to where we are, and we have to figure out how to go forward and be productive and call out when the line is being crossed, which it seems like it's being crossed. I mean, January 6th, violent offenders being pardoned. That's a line, you know?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, I guess. I mean, and also I think it's like what, you know, what people are getting out of it and what they want out of it. And I think everybody, you know, in the country, people want to have a better standard of living and they don't want to have to you know, pay so much for housing and they want to, you know, or food and all those things are very real and legitimate.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
It's just, you know, how you get there and whether you believe that, you know, what Trump is saying. And, but I don't think that motivation behind that is necessarily wrong to want someone who's going to fix those things.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I think that anything you say on that can get twisted around in some other way. I've experienced that. I think the bottom line with that is you just have to go out and, and do it. And you have to go do what you think is funny. Do what you think is creative. Do you know, make what you want to make. And I,
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
yeah there are realities to what gets made these days that you know it's harder I don't know if it's necessarily related to that as much as to just you know economics in terms of the box office and you know just sort of boring things like that well I think you know broad comedy has not really worked at the box office for a long time until that happens that you know then that will open up the floodgates more but you know to politicize it is tough because everybody has a different point of view on it and a lot of it is legitimate but
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
There's no one person saying, oh, you can do this or you can't do that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah. And I think that's kind of always been there on a certain level in show business. That's been always been part of it. I mean, but honestly, like even like looking at our show, you know, Our show has elements of corporate satire or whatever, or commentary. But Apple makes our show, and I've never, ever experienced them
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, he was taking out $10,000 or $20,000.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
It seems quaint. It definitely seems quaint. But that's what is kind of amazing about the story is that you see how at that time... doing something like that, you know, was so, so far over the line and that these guys actually did something about it and how much our, our, our culture has shifted, you know, in what is 50 years.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, yeah. And he, you know, just deny, deny, deny. He was the guy who did that and had, you know, kind of some weird sort of like, you know, early 70s charisma type thing where he just used that and just basically said, yeah, no, I didn't do it until he was guilty and he admitted it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I mean, yeah, like, it's sort of like... I would think he might have better things to do with his time or with his rocket ships or whatever it is. The guy's got to be busy. But I think what's more disturbing is how close he is to the president and how involved he is in making decisions about people's jobs and our government when he has no position there.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Maybe he wants to finance it. Yeah. It's a drop in the bucket. Give him $200 million, $300 million.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I would be happy to keep him busy doing that so he's not doing the other stuff he's doing for the next four years.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, I don't understand how we got here, but I think also the whole... The thing that's going on now with the super rich people in the world who are all behind him has been really concerning, obviously. And I think it's not really that surprising, I guess, that it's human nature and it's greed and it's power and it's all the things that human beings do and have done throughout history.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
But it's happening. There's no revelation there.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
No. You know, see him around, see him at Knicks games. I think he's a genuine sports fan. I know he's like an Upper West Side kid, you know, who like genuinely loves sports. So I feel like he was just kind of leaning into and smartly kind of going like, hey, let's do this a little different. I feel like it's organic for him.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I think what you've been talking about, and I've heard you recently talking about it on the podcast, about just that the Democrats need to figure out a way to get in touch with the electorate that is really connecting with them in a way that the Republicans have. is a huge thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And I don't know what the answer is to that, but the reality is that, yeah, it seems like that isn't happening right now. I think everybody's still sort of like regrouping from what's happened, but that's concerning to me for sure.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
So like, there's gotta be, although people get mad at, you know, on X or Twitter or whatever, and we'll say, now I'm not going to watch your movies and all that. And it's like, all right, I, you know, I guess fine.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I, I really, I'm not coming at you in any way other than I'm just expressing how I feel, you know, and I've never really been super political in my, you know, the, what I, the movies I've made, like night of the museum isn't a political screed.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
That's their choice. That's your choice. Right. If you have to really look inside and go like, okay, I can't accept what you do because of, you know, who you endorse for president.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
who you know we had once been a beacon of hope for we've always been you know obviously some you know times in our history where it hasn't been perfect but yeah yeah the united states has always been a place that's uh accepted people who are fleeing from political persecution is there any stories you have from those trips or anything like something that inspired you
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
You know, I thought about people when recently, you know, what happened in Syria with Assad. And I thought about the people that I met in displaced persons camps in Jordan who've been there for, you know, seven, eight years at a time I met them waiting to go back home. And when you're meeting with someone who's living in a tent, who's a doctor or whatever,
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
a lawyer or someone who just is not someone who wants to be there and just by the fate of living in a country that was in the midst of war and was displaced through no fault of their own that their life is completely put on hold and all they want to do is go back home and start their life again and i thought about them you know maybe being able to go back we don't know what's going to happen in syria
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
The other is so demonized in a way now and feared. And that's the most concerning thing to me is that the message that we put out of welcoming people and welcoming people who can contribute to our country and to our society. And that's the overwhelming evidence is that's what happens with refugees who do come to America.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, it's going to be a really tough time, but it's really about, and these are human beings, people, kids who have got, I met a kid who had to go to work taking care of his family at 10 years old. And I said, like, you're a really strong kid. He goes, I'm not a kid. I'm a man. And he was 10 years old, taking care of his whole family in Jordan.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
So yeah, I just would hope that we get back to being the country that represents that acceptance and what's positive about having people from all over the world be a part of our country, which is how our country was made up originally.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
The camps are there and necessary, but like I said, you see people whose lives are just put on hold, and those are not a solution, obviously. The neighboring countries are really the countries that take most of the outflow when there's a situation going on in a country that is at war or whatever it is. I think something like over 100 million displaced people in the world right now, 100 million.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
So it's hard to kind of even comprehend that. But yeah, the root causes are what it's about. And I think Filippo Grandi, who's the UN Refugee Agency High Commissioner, is a really good person who spends most of his time going from country to country and talking to governments about what they can do to help. And it's sort of a never-ending process for him.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, three episodes in. When this goes on, well, episode four comes on Thursday night.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
It was a script that got sent to our production company, a spec script. Somebody wrote Dan Erickson, who now is the creator of the show. And he had never had anything produced. And it was just, it reminded me of just all my, I don't know, favorite shows. It reminded me of Twilight Zone. It reminded me of The Office. It had just like a weird, just kind of sort of like alternate reality vibe to it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
But it was also a workplace comedy and the dialogue was so funny. And I met with him and it just, we were in sync. I was like, this could be great. And yeah, It took a few years to make it, to get it off the ground, but it was just something I wanted to see. Why?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Because Apple didn't exist yet, Apple TV+. They were just starting up. And then we developed it for a while, and then you kind of go back, like writing out the rest of the season. And then we had a casting issue where we didn't settle on Adam Scott because I wanted Adam Scott for a long time. And we finally got to the place where everybody was on the same page. And...
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I wasn't going to make it if he wasn't doing it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Adam, to me, there was never anybody else, but also the synchronicity, I think, of just being on Apple TV+, which we didn't know what it would be, but it just feels like that's the home for it. And we pitched it to all the different streamers and nobody wanted it except Apple.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah. Before I didn't know him, I'd just been a fan and we'd cross paths a couple of times. I remember I ran into him once in an editing room. I was editing something. He was editing something. We'd, talked about maybe working together someday. He's so intense and he's so committed. And I feel like he's one of the reasons the show works is because you just believe him.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
You believe that he believes all that lore and all those crazy ideas. And when the actor believes it, then you invest as an audience. And yeah, it was fun. I feel good now that I know him because at first, The first season, it was a little bit like, I just, you know, a little intimidated by, you know, Totoro. Intimidated by Totoro because of the Jesus character? Yeah, well, the Jesus character.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
He's a director. He's frigging intense. He's intelligent. And he's smart because he like, trusting for him is the big thing. And I think that's why he wanted to work with Chris Walken because they were friends. And they had a, you know, built-in trust already. And I think once you earn his trust, it's, you know, then it's just like really fun.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, that was Dan Erickson. I mean, it's all out of his head. Watching them develop that was really beautiful, just as a fan, to see that. And it was really fun to see that the fans of the show really embraced that, too.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
there's a you know cobell uh patricia arquette's character has a vw rabbit yeah one of my favorite cars it feels very like relevant to the moment like a lot of the themes and a lot of the topics so like how did you feel like that that all worked that all came together well sometimes i think it's easier to do something that is not of the moment and you know it doesn't it was very important for me that we didn't have like cnn or
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
you know, any brand names that we really recognize. They're like, you know, maybe like a few things you could see there, but really we do everything we can to keep them out because it's its own universe in its own place. And I think that allows it to then, you know, not be commenting on something that's specifically happening right now in the moment.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And I think hopefully it gives it a little bit more of a sort of an, you know, a lifetime, you know, for people to react to in whatever time they watch the show down the line.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
speaking you know kind of to like any place any time there have always been these these sorts of sacrifices you make i think the idea of working at a big company a big corporation is you know what's there in the show and you know he wrote that script close to 10 years ago the pilot oh wow we started making it before covet and then all of a sudden we were making it during covet and then it was like a show about you know isolation
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
So it's interesting how certain ideas, I think if there's something that's universal in them, and I think this idea of going to a job that you work for this sort of unknown boss who we don't know who the board is, we don't know who the CEO is really, and we know who he is, but we don't know what they're doing, why they're doing it. These people literally have no idea what they're doing there.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And I think there's something that people can relate to in a certain level. I also love the metaphor of just life, of like, you know, we get up, We do our thing. We work hard. We get upset. We fall in love. We do all this stuff. And we have no idea why or really where we're going or what happens when we die.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And so, to me, that greater metaphor is kind of like what's going on with them in the show.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Well, it's also that question of what you're severing from. What do you actually experience as Tim? Do you experience your innie or your outie, which is the one that you really remember? Because when you're innie, you're innie, and when you're outie, you're outie. Yeah. Do you love doing the podcast or do you dislike doing the podcast?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
makes you like you know what is your essence you know and what are what is the thing that like makes you want to experience it makes you you know quote unquote happy you know where's the place you want to be and a lot of people don't want to be at work and that's why dan wrote the show i think is because he was working at a door factory that he had to go to for whatever like eight or nine hours a day and he just wanted to forget that part of his life
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
There's an element of that. I personally love doing what I do, but it can be really hard sometimes, but I'm also grateful that I'm not, like you said, you know, Derek Zoolander in the coal mine, you know, it's like, I'm grateful for that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I, so I don't want to forget what I'm doing, you know, when I go away from it, but then there's always the painful parts of life that we would, I think we all fantasize about forgetting and, But I think one of the themes in the show is really, is what can you forget? You know, what can we really, you can't, you know, what can you suppress?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
You can't, we experience things, we can try not to remember them, but something inside of us is going to feel it, whether it's in our body, it's our, you know, memory, whatever, repressed memory. And, you know, there's a lot of research about that, too, about what's, you know, generational trauma, things like that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I mean... You know, what do you want me to tell you? I, you know, I don't know.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
From what I've seen, what I've seen in the show, you know, yeah, there's, you know, the myth is that Keir went into the cave and tamed the four tempers. That's what that painting is. We don't know why. Well, I think, you know, it has something to do, maybe the idea of, you know, the 19th century, he was, you know, creating some sort of way of, dealing with, you know, he was kind of a doctor.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
He had to, you know, had the first sort of medical med tech company for the 19th century. And he was the humors, you know, the idea of like how people would sometimes try to cure people that weren't necessarily medically oriented and those beliefs. So I can't tell you much more though, Tim, because then I'm in trouble. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I don't know. Honestly, I wish I even knew why those movies were working back then. Really. Do you not feel like you know? I feel like at that time, first of all, people were going to the theaters to watch movies. And again, it comes back to that thing of, well, the studios will produce stuff when, when they're making money. So that was happening.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And I feel like until we do that again, now in terms of ideas, like you're asking the wrong guy. Cause like, I feel like I'm always trying to figure out like what's a good idea. And I'm always sort of like ripping it apart. So comedy is hard. I think it's really hard because not everybody's going to laugh at what you think is funny. And when you can find something for some reason at that time,
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And everybody was laughing at the same stuff and going for it and enjoying it. And I feel like, you know, studio movies these days really need to get a really, really big audience. And it's a little bit of a chicken and the egg thing when I'm saying because I don't have the answer to it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
you know people are high all the time people have got to be way higher than they were now in the 2000s so you've got to be able to provide something to make high people laugh right they just had to get to the theater and get high that's the thing because it's easy when you have that to stay home and just watch what's on the couch or what you're on from the couch okay well we could start with some apple comedies then or one of the streamers yeah look i'm i'm into it i'm trying actually i'm trying to figure it out but i think it's also we have there's a much younger generation of really funny people out there and
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
You know, there's attention span and stuff like that. But I think there are really, really funny people out there. It's more challenging for them than it was for us at the time to get a movie made like that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I mean, for me, movies like Step Brothers, I could watch that movie all day. That's actually the first thing I saw Adam Scott in when he played Derek, the asshole. It was so funny. Look, I also love the comedies in the 70s too, and there were some great funny movies.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
We don't have it happening in the movies right now, and somebody needs to break through with it, but I don't know if I have the answer.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Right, except nobody has cable anymore, so.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Albert Brooks' first movie, Real Life. Did you ever see that? I don't think I have. I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it. He made it like 1980 and it was basically he was doing a parody of... the PBS series about the loud family and American family that they, that was the first reality show. They followed him a family around for a year.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And then he did a takeoff on it where he was a filmmaker doing a documentary about a family. And it's one of the funniest movies ever. And it foresees everything that reality television became.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Did I make it? Was it entertaining enough and fun? Because I feel like we just talked about heavy sort of stuff.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I enjoy you and Bill Kristol together. You're a good team.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I used to prep a lot more in the early 90s when I would go on and try to really do it. And then I just sort of got old and tired. But TV talk shows have changed so much. If you watch those shows from the 70s again... Oh, this old guy, Ben talking about like, it's so interesting, because people are talking about real shit.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And then TV talk shows became like, what's your funny story, you have to talk to a pre interviewer. And then they write it out. And it's all it's all like, yeah, yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
It is that's I feel like podcasts are the new talk shows of the you know, what talk shows used to be.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
But maybe secretly because, I don't know, he felt like he was double thinking and thinking for his bottom line, but he really doesn't have a bottom line. He doesn't make enough money that he's going to get the tax break, but he wishes he...
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
They all voted for Kamala. I don't think that's true. Ellie definitely voted for Trump. No, you're right. Helena. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Definitely Helena went for Trump, for sure.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I do not. I'm just, you know, I'm going to keep listening to your podcast, keep doing your thing. I thought the episode you had with Jon Favreau, you know, post-election was great. I got emotional listening to that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I feel really good. The trade deadline is imminent. You're not going to do anything. I don't think so. I think Mitchell Robinson is in place of the trade deadline as he's going to come back and start playing for us. I feel really good. I feel like the Knicks are starting to gel and Jalen Brunson has changed the culture.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And he's thriving. It's crazy. I had the same concern. I didn't know what was going to happen. And just seeing him, and we started calling Brunson Cap.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
it's certainly just right from the the get-go they bonded and he's having a career year he's had a little issues because he hurt his thumb but i'm i feel like i love tibbs i'm all in with tibbs he's playing uh the starters less minutes it's you know it's in a good trajectory yeah it's good i'm i mean i don't want to jinx you so i won't say that i'm rooting for the next because my my rooting interest with the obvious one nuggets exception usually don't turn out that well but um
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
team I think even for people that aren't like Knicks fans like you they're very accessible they're good guys they don't have a lot of attitude at all you know they're just like regular funny guys and uh Josh Hart come on Josh Hart there's like no one better did you go to the games growing up like I did so so what what era would that have been Ewing I was there at eight years old in 1973.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Clyde Frazier had been on that team already?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah. So I remember my dad taking me. And I remember what that felt like. So it's been a long time. It has been a long time. We're ready. We're really ready. And then, obviously, the late 90s. I was living in LA in the late 90s and wasn't really there that much. But as a teenager through Bernard King era, I was there and it was, he was my guy.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I feel like this year, next year, these are going to be great years.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
But I've gone through, I mean, nothing can hurt me because I've been through the pain.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I mean, I feel like I don't understand it. I don't understand why they would do that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
It was like a weird Rob Palenka, Nico, yeah, like dual severance thing. I don't know what was going on there. I don't understand it. And I like Dallas a lot. And I think, weirdly, maybe the Mavericks might do well in the short term. Yeah, I do too. But, I mean, Luka is Luka.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Right. And then you got the Spurs now with Fox and Wembley. I mean, it's shifted a little bit.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Well, nobody got a chance at Luca. I know. This happened in the dead of night, this deal, this weird severed deal. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, and also you can get in shape. He's 25. It seems like everybody's afraid to say, oh, we want you to be in shape more.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Hey, man, it's great to be here. I'm such a fan.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And it's mutual, obviously. Yeah, especially I think even the last couple months, it's been great to have you to listen to. you know, sort of work through our reality.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I think about people like you who have to do this and deal with it. Because for me, my first reaction was to do that, was just sort of retreat and go under the covers. And also be grateful that I don't have to deal with it every second of my life. Now then, of course, at a certain point, your conscience kicks in and you're like, I have to say something, I have to do something.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
But for someone who has to go out every day and deal with this Really, this craziness, I commend you and appreciate you.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
what I've been eating or I don't know, but it's just sort of every day is, and then maybe it's also like where I'm at in my life in terms of, you know, like I'm 59 years old and I'm just thinking about all of that, um, how time goes by and then the actual reality of our world and yeah, the political situation, um,
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
You know, I think everybody creates in a certain sense their own reality and that like you're it's all so subjective. That's what I think, you know, the nature of reality. That's we could talk about that for hours and hours. I'm not going to give you any insights on it other than I do contemplate it a lot, actually.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
It's a little bit... I mean, it is a little bit crazy, the speed at which things are happening and what's going on. And I guess, you know, it's not really a metaphysical thought, though, but it's just... It's hard to comprehend when things are going. It feels like things are going very, very fast. And also what the actual repercussions of things in our lives are going to be.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
I know the people who get affected directly by all the things that are being done right now in the government. But just in terms of when we go through our daily lives, how do we deal with this? It's really that question, coming back to your conscience of what is it that you need to do as a person? Because that's a personal choice that everybody has to make.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Yeah, I think about it day by day and sort of moment by moment and try not to think about it too much in terms of, you know, yeah, like my own sort of like personal sort of my image or something like that because I really feel like you have to go from a place of like, well, just what feels right for me. You know, when it comes to...
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
engaging on social media and things like that i feel like people feel like if you're going to be on social media you have some sort of responsibility to speak out on everything that's happening and that's just like ridiculous and impossible and nobody needs that no nobody needs that pressure nobody needs to hear everything that ben stiller thinks about everything it's like you have to issue a statement on every public news item as if you're a politician
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Or it's like, you're saying too much about this. You're not saying enough about that. And when everything happened over the last year and a half or so with Gaza and Israel, I realized there's no way I'm going to start going back and forth on social media with people about this. That's just a no-win game. And also, I don't want to put my energy into... Into that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And so I decided to say something by writing something about it and just decided that I'm not going to get into that back and forth, but I have my own feelings about it and I'll express myself when I feel like I need to express myself.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
It's so early. I think everybody's going to have their own personal reaction. And it's impossible not to be aware of the fact that people feel this, you know, that, oh, wow, you know, there can be retribution from the government if you say something wrong. And that's really scary. So just to even be thinking that way is, but, you know, of course, I'm aware of it. I think everybody's aware of it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
And And certain people are just naturally more outspoken and always have been. And I've sort of had my own path with it. But right now, yeah, I think it's definitely a thing that people feel. And in a way, for me, it makes me think about it even more, about what do I really want to say and how do I really feel about something? And I think for artists in times like these, their creative energy...
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
really goes into expressing what they feel. And there's a lot of amazing work that can come out of times like these that I hope we see.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ben Stiller: 'Severance,' but Real Life
Maybe the first time around, it was more about Trump. And then this time around, it's more about the realization that our country... is really deeply divided. For me, it's less about the fact that he won by a majority and that many, many, many people are willing to go down that road. And what is that? So that's actually something that it's always, I think, been about.
The Commercial Break
Putt Putt Rawr
Hey, I'm Ben Stiller. I'm Adam Scott. And we make a TV show called Severance. Severance is back for season two on Apple TV+.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And find yourself.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But I think a lot of that is because of how social media has changed how people can upload their lives to everyone directly, you know?
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Just that she was making a little documentary on her video camera that then she had to give to Michael to put on the MTV version of what that was. And now you just go straight to the internet. And I think young people are expected to do that now and to create their own movie and get it out into the world.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And I think it plays into what you're saying, which is it's almost like if you're not selling out, you're not doing what you should be doing.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And I feel that with my kids. I see that pressure on them when I see their friends and what they post and their image of what they put out to the world. And it's a responsibility. And if you don't do that, you're not part of what's going on. So I feel like there's almost a pressure to have to do that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Well, I thought the story was kind of, you know, it's this prototypical story of a guy who comes from nothing to do whatever it takes to get to the top. And I think Bud Schulberg always saw it as kind of a metaphor for anybody who wants to get to the top of that mindset of it doesn't matter, you just do whatever it takes. That's why I think the novel resonates.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I think there's always been a resistance to it, and I can understand why. For a long time, I was very frustrated because I felt like, well, this story should be made. But, you know, the flip side of it is that it can be looked at as you're shining a spotlight on a Jewish character who is this self-hating Jew who is willing to do whatever. And, you know...
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I mean, partly, I think so. I think it's always been hard to make show business stories, you know, in Hollywood because people in the business feel like the outside world isn't interested in the inside baseball of it, though I've always been attracted to those kinds of stories. And I do, you know, it's funny, I think about it now and I would love to see that story made.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
What I worry about is how people would interpret it On the outside, you know, and that's as a Jewish person.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I think just being a Jewish person feels different. And I think it's an environment that growing up, I grew up in an incredibly sheltered Upper West Side environment. I never experienced anti-Semitism. I heard about it, but I was, you know, never around it. So the reality of that is
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
to start feeling that now where other people have felt it their whole lives in other parts of the world and, you know, in other parts of our country.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And to see the spike and the rise in anti-Semitic violence is, you know, something that I never thought I'd experience in my lifetime and feeling what my kids are feeling too and how incredibly politicized it all is and how complicated it is because, you know,
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
With the social media universe and all of it, it's almost impossible to really talk about it in a really level-headed sort of way where you can hear other people's ideas because people are just kind of like shouting at each other on social media. But the reality of it is really frightening. Yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I don't know. I mean, I think it's also a choice of as a creative person where you want to put your energy, you know, in terms of the business. I think there have always been those misconceptions of like, you know, of what of how, you know, Jews are involved in Hollywood. And that's always been a thing.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And a lot of that also is, I think, a result of the fact that there were a lot of successful Jewish people who started the Hollywood movie industry. And so it's sort of like folded in on itself. But the reality of that world now is so completely different. It's just, you know, the Jewish population is so small.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
You know, it took me a long time to even realize that in my sheltered world, you know, what is it, 20 million people?
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
jews in the whole world or something like that um so the the proportion of success i mean it's it's a very tough thing to navigate and i feel like right now in the world there's just so much hate and antipathy that's out there and it's not limited to anti-semitism but that that's a you know that's something jewish people are feeling but people are feeling it all over too
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
It's funny because I just, you know, I don't categorize it specifically. And I think I find that stuff very funny. I mean, I think whenever anything is very specific, it's always funny. And I feel like the show sort of has its basis in the workplace comedy, like The Office or Office Space or Parks and Rec. But where it goes off, I think this season we probably went to some, like, stranger places.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, I think around that time I moved back to New York. I'd been living in L.A. for 20 years and we decided to move back here where I grew up and I wanted to try to spend more time there.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
at home but also it was yeah it was like a point where for me really where it like kind of changed in terms of my outlook was after zoolander 2 oh it was the feeling of like oh okay this is what everybody wants this all right i'm gonna do it and i had fun doing it and then nobody wanted it and i was like well but you said you wanted it and really was it that bad
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
That was where I really was like, oh, I have to make a choice here where I'm not going to do that if I want to do these other things and wait for the right opportunity to come up and not go off and, oh, if somebody's offering me Zoolander 3, then I'm going to go do that. But Zoolander 2 gave me the gift of nobody offering me Zoolander 3. Because nobody wanted it at that time.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
So it was like, okay, here's some space. I have to live with that feeling, the feeling of not winning. And also, you know, my marriage wasn't in a great place. And there's a lot going on that really, for me, kind of, I think I got a little bit clearer on what I wanted and what my priorities were. But I think 2010 was sort of like the beginning of that moving out of L.A.,
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Um, well, when we separated, it was just, you know, having space to see what our relationship was, what my life felt like when we weren't in that relationship, how much I cared about my family, how much I loved our family unit. Um, I think we both, as she said, we both kind of took care of ourselves separately. And, um,
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And eventually, it was almost like three or four years, really, that we weren't together. But we always were connected. And in my mind, I never didn't want us to be together. And I don't know where Christine was. You'd have to ask her. But COVID put us all together in the same house.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And it was almost like a year of living in the same house before we were actually together. Yeah. But I'm so grateful for it. And not that many people do come back together when they separate. I mean, a lot of people do, I'm sure.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But there's nothing like that when you do come back because you really do have so much more of an appreciation for what you have because we know we could not have it, too.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But I felt like that was also just part of what the show is. The show has to continue on its journey and can't just stay doing the same thing. But I love that stuff.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Well... I think it's really made me look at my own relationship to my parents more than anything. Every time I want to make the movie about them, I'm realizing it's all kind of reflecting back on my own issues that I have with them. And how much, you know, I mean, you're right.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Like, I feel so fortunate that I have all this footage of my parents and our family from these Super 8 movies that my dad took and then I took. And recordings my dad made hours and hours and hours.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Talking with my mother as they were writing sketches. Or sometimes he'd just record us just because he wanted to have our voices. But I see my... I see the world I grew up in. I see my father. I was just thinking about it this morning, just how much of... I love my father, but also that tension of not wanting to be my father.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But everybody loves my father, and so I would love to be loved as my father is loved because he was a lovely person. But then there's also the thing of like, oh, but I'm me. And that was something I was feeling... since I was, you know, a teenager.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
No, I think it was more just wanting to individuate for my father, wanting to be my own person. not being into their comedy and their thing. I wanted to be a serious director. And then when I discovered comedy, it wasn't like what they did. It was like, I like SCTV or Saturday Night Live. And not until I was older was I able to really just appreciate what they did.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But all the while, my parents were so supportive, especially my dad. My mom was a little bit of a...
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
tougher audience um and i think my dad was very overprotective and concerned about the rejection in show business that you get have to deal with um yeah i don't know i mean it's a hard thing when you're when you look up to a parent so much in terms of just their like what their essence is like jerry's essence was so sweet um that you know you look at i look at myself and go you know am i
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
The second season probably gets a little bit stranger than that. Yeah. But it is based in the idea that started the show, right? That these people are in a workplace doing a job that they don't understand. They don't know who they are or what they're doing or why they're there. And that to me has always been sort of the, you know, that's the sort of like the blueprint for the show.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Am I that person? Am I as good as he was? And maybe that's a good thing to want to aspire to, but I feel like that's what he was. Are you? I don't know. I mean, I try, but also, by the way, he obviously wasn't perfect, but he wasn't one of those guys who was like... you know, win, win, win. That wasn't his drive.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
His drive was just to kind of create and to try to protect his family and to be loved. Because he came from a background of parents who were very poor and there was a lot of fighting between his parents and depression. And he wasn't nurtured like that. But he didn't go on to not nurture his children. He went the opposite way. He was so nurturing. So, you know, that's what he was.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
She was. She was. She was Irish Catholic. Very funny. I think I actually share more of my mom's sense of humor than my dad's. She... was a serious actor who then my dad drew into comedy, who came up with the idea for them to do their comedy act to make money after they'd been married for five or six years in the 50s. And I think she never loved comedy. She was very good at it.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I think she was more naturally adept at it than my dad, actually. My dad was funny, but his dream was to be Eddie Cantor or Jack Benny. My mother was more of like a polished stage, you know, like a nightclub. She really just knew how to work a crowd. And she wrote plays. And she wrote plays. And she was more interested in writing and reading and acting and different kinds of things.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
She, I think, always was like when she saw me doing comedy, she was like, oh, that's great. But I like, you know, I liked Greenberg or I like Permanent Midnight. Yeah. Yeah.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, right. What was that about? Well, in the idea of the movie was, that's funny, I'd forgotten about that. My family had to play my family. And also there was a psychiatrist who sort of like kicks off the whole thing. I think it gives my character a pill or something. But I wanted Gene Wilder to play that guy. And I sent it to my mom and to Gene Wilder and they both nixed it.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Gene Wilder, he's like, I think you're great, but I do not like this project. I thought it was really good. Yeah. My mother didn't want to go there. Now, that's very atypical of her because when I was starting out, like audition tapes or I did an audition reel for Saturday Night Live where I had my parents in it and they were in so many things that I did. It was never a thing.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But for some reason, that specific role and maybe it was what I don't know. I wish I could ask her.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
That's my lore. Ben's going to do what Ben's going to do. It wasn't great, but I knew that I couldn't do well there because I wasn't great at live performing. My mom would have been better on that show. I got too nervous. I didn't enjoy it, and I wanted to be making short films.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
In the moment, there were reasons why, and I had this opportunity to do this MTV show, and it had been a dream to be on Saturday Night Live. But Looking back on it, I don't remember exactly how I had the... Fortitude. Gumption. I was going to say, yeah.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Gumption. Thank you very much to do that. But for whatever reason, I followed that instinct.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Hmm. That's interesting because when I hear that, I know that my dad knew why he wanted to perform. It's a good question. I think so. For me, I think it's about trying to get closer to expressing my true self. trying to somehow make something that feels truthful and real and maybe is just more opening up myself in a way that's closer to the bone.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
trying to have the sort of courage to kind of keep going for that. For me, it's figuring it out as like just what life is about. It's the big question, like, what are we here for? I haven't figured that out yet. And I think as I continue to try to figure that out while I'm still here, I feel like that's what I want to try to make the work that I do about too.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
No, they're not. They're totally different. One has blonde hair and one has really dark hair. One has a mustache.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
No, I mean, it was like, you know, like those are two of like the most fun experiences I've ever had on movies, playing those characters. And we did the reading for Dodgeball. Ross and Thurber had written the movie and was directing it. And I was like, I don't know, like what voice to do. I don't want to have that many different voices. And I kind of just went into that voice.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And he's like, that's great. I was like, well, I kind of did that in headway. It's just like, oh, it's all right, whatever. And I honestly never thought, not that I was like trying to like pull one over. It's just like, I never thought anybody would really like, you know, 30 years later be talking to me. Here I am. On the New York Times about like, you know, calling out heavyweights and dodgeball.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
It just wasn't in my, you know.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
You didn't think about that?
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
If I could go back. But no, yeah, it was just sort of like, all right, I'll just go for it and do this, do this one.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, I've never really believed that idea of like, you know, you have to have friction or something on a set or, you know, I've heard directors talk about that to keep sort of tension on set. I think just the nature of making this show over the last, I mean, it's five years now, has been a learning experience and
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, it was great talking to you, man.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, yeah, right. You do the little follow-up.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Isn't it usually like a phone call or something?
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I think it was just like kind of a, I don't want to say a more innocent time 20 years ago because it wasn't that innocent, but weirdly kind of it was.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Hey, it's the follow-up, the little follow-up.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I don't think that's a spoiler to say that.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Um, I'm not going to say anything and, you know, I want to leave all, all options open, but also know I'm a Gordon Lightfoot fan. I think it was incredible. Oh my God. Yes. And I used carefree highway at the end of escape a day in the world. And I will hopefully always be able to use his music and movies.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Cause I think he's just one of the great artists of our time.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
yes the interesting thing is it was you know came out a couple years ago i think that i was like the same age that de niro was when we did the first movie and kind of like what would have evolved in that you know that now that i my character that greg would have kids who maybe one of them's getting married so it kind of you know was an interesting sort of mirror to the first movie but uh for me i guess i look at it differently as a as a director
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
than as an actor. And if there was something that came together on Fockers that everybody liked, that was fun, you know, I'm open to that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But I think maybe for me as a director, my head is in a different place, you know, probably even post-Sanamore and Severance and stuff.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
No, it's just a, well, no, it's just a different, like a different creative experience for me, I think. you know, like it's, um, it's really more like my, my personal interest as a filmmaker, I think right now is like, kind of like, I don't know.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Like, I think it's, I think it's really hard to, it's really hard to make a comedy, you know, in a way, like when I'm as a, you know, when you're directing, uh, I kind of like the freedom also of not having to direct a comedy where you can, any comedy that comes into something that's a dramatic, uh,
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, sometimes, you know, creatively, it's been the questions of like, which way do we go with it? And I really believe that the show comes out of the different creative perspectives of the people who work on it. And so, yeah, it's not always perfect. We went through patches where there were difficulties, but it's also, I think it all came out of everybody wanting something different.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
is usually welcome if the tone is clear, but it's sort of like a bonus, you know, and not an expectation.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And if I'm really being honest, like that's part of it too.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I think it's just, it's just the freedom, you know, the freedom to like not worry about how something was going to get interpreted. And I do think it was sort of in a weird way was a more, it was a freer time because there was less analysis given to even to the people who were making the comedy.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I think it was just like kind of a, I don't want to say a more innocent time 20 years ago because it wasn't that innocent, but
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But weirdly, kind of, it was, you know?
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Well, I can only speak from my own experience, which is I definitely am aware of that. But again, I also never really thought about it that way back in the 2000s, too.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I don't think I was ever... I think I'm the same person I was on that regard, in terms of... I wasn't the guy who was going to go out there and say whatever. I think I always had that self-awareness that probably just was...
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I mean, he, cause you know, he, he just basically, you know, like created it all on his own.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And I think he had a persona that he, you know, developed. And I think, I guess, you know, you could say Woody Allen did it too, but for me, there was just something about the tone of his humor that is so unique.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
So yeah, for me, the answer is no. I mean, I think I've, been able to make some things that I feel proud of, and I love being a movie director and actor and all that, but I feel like what he did is unique and really has not ever been equaled.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I mean, I really just want to keep on getting closer to, like, making something that I feel is as good as, you know, it can be and that is...
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
as honest as it can be, that to me is, you know, really satisfying.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, I've enjoyed it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And this was a good follow-up. I feel like it wasn't like a little whatever, you know.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Your little New York Times thing you got, babe. Good for you.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
to be as good as it could be. And I really believe that all those different points of view ended up making the show what it is. So, yeah, there was some stuff that happened, but it wasn't a big deal.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
We have the end. Yes.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yes, of course. Do you know the answer?
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yes. We definitely have an end. I think we now know exactly how many seasons, which I won't say at this point. But, yeah.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I mean... In my mind, the series has always been about Mark and, you know, his innie and his outie and what happens with his innie and his outie and what is the ultimate sort of destination for both of them.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I do think, you know, what you said is true that at a certain point, there's always somebody making a decision who is not making it to your face or telling you or you even know who that person is. And it can be really, really frustrating. I think in show business, even probably more than, I mean, just from my own experience, the
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
You know, how something happens, why it happens, why someone gets rejected, why a decision is made is never explained to the artist or the creative person. Or if it is, it's usually not the truth. You know, it's a cliche in Hollywood, but it's kind of true is that everybody, you know, will say yes, and it doesn't mean yes, it means no. Or let me think about it. Or yeah, great.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
This was a great meeting. And then like a day later, yeah, they're passing. More than ever, honestly, these days, because, you know, it's a very tough environment now to get things made. I think just with post the strike, post COVID, it's more expensive to make things.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And I think the decision makers are, you know, trying to keep their jobs and trying to figure out how to make things work for them, which means constriction and choices that are safer.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Honestly, yeah, I never, I had no, I mean, it's funny because at the time, I remember like a moment in time when like people started having that reaction. Like I would like open up a newspaper and be like, why is Ben Stiller in every movie? Like I remember opening up the LA Times and a guy like wrote, it was actually a funny inside joke with Ricky Gervais for a long time.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Because there was this writer who wrote like a letter to God, dear God, stop putting Ben Stiller in comedies. And it was like, yeah, but I wasn't thinking, I was just like, I don't know. I'm, you know, I'm here. I'm doing it. I love doing what I do. But, you know, it's only in retrospect more to look back and go, oh, yeah, that was like, wow, there was like, you know, a thing happening there that.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I was very fortunate to be a part of, but I don't know what the zeitgeist was. And you can look at 2000s comedies now and go, okay, they were a specific kind of thing, a tone. And there were a lot of great things in those comedies, too, that we don't have now. But I don't know if you can recreate that now. But at the time, I really wasn't analyzing it too much.
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'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I was kind of just trying to figure out how to navigate it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
It's not something when you're in it that you... are really able to analyze because it's happening.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I don't think so, because I don't think I'm that smart, really. I think I would make decisions based, like, I remember very clearly Night at the Museum was a decision because I grew up near the Natural History Museum. And I thought, oh, I love this. Like, if I was a kid, I'd love this. And it'd be fun to do. But then the Night at the Museum 3 decision is a little different, right?
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, but it's also, you know, at that point, you know, you've got a team together, and those were all fun to do. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to not want to work with Robin Williams or, you know, Sean Levy getting this group together, but...
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
You know, when I was in that period, I don't think I had the ability to kind of like hover over and go like, how am I looking at... And a lot of actors and filmmakers do have that ability. I just wasn't at that place. So, you know, the only part of it that... was sort of like nagging at me. He was like, I like to do other kinds of movies as a filmmaker.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And I just never really stopped to make the time to do that. I was directing a lot of those movies myself, directing myself in them. And a lot of times getting movies made as a director because I was in them, they say, well, if you would be in it, then we'll make it. And also I think it's just sort of like something that happened and you don't have control over that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, sure. And, you know, that's a personal choice you make at the time. I mean, I think fear is always a big thing as an actor. I think, you know, I saw a Q&A with Jeremy Strong, that movie The Apprentice, and somebody asked him, why did you want to do this role? He said fear.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And I totally identify with that because, you know, fear is what drives you sometimes to go away from something or sometimes to jump into something, depending on where you're at.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I mean, I think so many decisions are based in, it's underneath. It's like whether or not the fear is going to push you away from something or you're going to jump off the cliff with it. I had a chance to do Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross on Broadway, probably around that long-came poly time. I decided not to do that. I look back, oh, maybe I would have liked to have done that.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But it's also just where I was at at the time.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, I mean, I think as you get older, it changes everything in terms of, you know, what you look at as what's ahead of you in terms of the things you think you want to do, then really looking at, okay, well, I'm at this point in my life, I'm at this age. You have to think more about, well, do I really want to take this chance right now?
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
How much do I care about what the quote-unquote bad result is? And I think as you get older, you... For me, it's like you care a little bit less about that if you wanna do something because you're like, well, why am I letting this intangible thing, which is like fear of what? It's fear of people saying I suck, fear of people not going to see it or saying, I mean, what is that?
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
That's still like, and I've experienced that because as you know, I've had successes and failures and the day after something doesn't do well or if it gets bad reviews or people don't go, It's not like anything in your literal life has changed, you know, your real life, your tangible life.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
It's just how you feel, you know, when you feel embarrassed or you feel like I, you know, damn, I wasn't, you know, I want to be the winner. But, you know, winning doesn't always happen, usually doesn't happen. So, you know, how do you live with that? And when you take the chance, it's still important that you took the leap and you went for it. And failure can be in... Not taking the chance.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
And as you get older, I think that's something that you start to feel. It's like, well, I just want to have this experience while I'm still here.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Yeah, I mean, sometimes the audience has to sort of have time to... I feel like this has happened to a bunch of movies I've done, which is it takes the audience a few years to get it. Like Zoolander or something like that. Like Zoolander, when it came out, was not a big hit. Because what a weird world, what a weird character.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
But once they became acclimated to it, then it became something that they really liked.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I feel like the film is a timepiece of where we were at that moment in time as put through a kind of a pop culture lens. And it was written by Helen Childress, who was taking her experience and trying to kind of encapsulate, you know, the issues that she was dealing with.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
I think I was coming to add more as my character, honestly, you know, the Michael character who was the guy kind of trying to commodify it a little bit and was outside of it a little bit. So in a way, I feel like that's what the movie is. Like Helen was Lelaina and I was Michael. And we improvised a lot as she was rewriting the script when we were working on it.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
So that was my experience of making that movie. I do feel like generationally, though, the issues in that movie are kind of evergreen sort of issues.
The Daily
'The Interview': Ben Stiller on 'Severance,' Selling Out and Being Jewish Today
Well, I just think it's that moment in time where you're having to figure out how to, if you have parents who've supported you or whatever, you're having to cut the cord and figure out how to go out into the world.
The Daily
Trump 2.0: A Criminal Sentencing, Presidential Legacies, and Greenland
It's a hard thing when you look up to a parent so much. I look at myself and go, am I that person? Am I as good as he was? Are you? I don't know.