Ben Stiller | |
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![]() Stiller photographed by Jerry Avenaim, 2006 |
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Birth name | Benjamin Edward Stiller |
Born | November 30, 1965 New York City, New York, U.S. |
Spouse | Christine Taylor (2000–present) |
Emmy Awards | |
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Variety or Music Program 1993 The Ben Stiller Show |
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American Comedy Awards | |
Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture (Leading Role) 2000 Meet the Parents |
Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an Emmy Award-winning American comedian, actor, film producer and director. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.[1]
After beginning his acting career with a play, he wrote several mockumentaries, and was offered two of his own shows, both entitled The Ben Stiller Show. After acting in a few films, Stiller had his directorial debut with Reality Bites, and has since written, starred in, directed, and produced over fifty films and television shows. His films have grossed $1.38 billion.[2] In 2008, Stiller starred in the movie Tropic Thunder, which he also co-wrote, co-produced, and directed.
He is a member of the comedic acting brotherhood colloquially known as the Frat Pack. With multiple cameos in music videos, television shows, and films, he may be best known for his roles in Heavyweights, Zoolander, Starsky and Hutch, There's Something About Mary, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Meet the Parents, Tropic Thunder, and Night at the Museum. Throughout his career, he has received several awards and honors including an Emmy Award, several MTV Movie Awards, and a Teen Choice Award.
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Stiller was born in New York City. His father, Jerry Stiller, is Jewish and his mother Anne Meara, who is of Irish Catholic background, converted to Judaism after marrying his father.[3][4] His parents frequently took him on the sets of their appearances, including an appearance on The Mike Douglas Show when he was six.[5] He admitted in an interview that he considered his childhood unusual: "In some ways, it was a show-business upbringing—a lot of traveling, a lot of late nights—not what you'd call traditional."[6] His older sister, actress Amy Stiller, appeared in his film Dodgeball in a short scene as a waitress at a restaurant.[7] He displayed an early interest in film making and made Super 8 movies with his sister and friends.[8] At 10 years old, he made his acting debut as a guest on his mother's television series Kate McShane. In the late 1970s he performed with the New York City troupe NYC's First All Children's Theater, performing in several roles, including the title role in Clever Jack and the Magic Beanstalk.[9] After being inspired by the television show Second City Television while in high school, Stiller realized that he wanted to get involved with sketch comedy.[9]
Stiller attended the Cathedral School in and graduated from the Calhoun School in New York in 1983. Stiller then enrolled as a film student at the University of California, Los Angeles and joined Beta Theta Pi fraternity.[10] After nine months, Stiller left school to move back to New York City. He made his way through acting classes, auditioning, and trying to find an agent.[11]
He landed a role in the Broadway revival of John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves, alongside John Mahoney; the production would garner four Tony Awards.[11] During its run, Stiller produced a satirical mockumentary whose principal was fellow actor Mahoney. His comedic work was so well received by the cast and crew of the play that he followed up with a 10 minute short called The Hustler of Money, a parody of the Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money. The film featured him in a send-up of Tom Cruise's character and Mahoney in the Paul Newman role, only this time as a bowling hustler instead of a pool shark. The short got the attention of Saturday Night Live, which aired it in 1987, and two years later offered him a spot as a writer.[11] In the meantime, he also had a bit part in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun.
In 1989, Stiller wrote and appeared on a season of Saturday Night Live as a featured performer. However, since the show did not want him to make more short films for the show, he left after five shows.[11] He then put together Elvis Stories, a short film about a fictitious tabloid focused on recent sightings of Elvis Presley. The film starred friends and co-stars John Cusack, Jeremy Piven, Mike Myers, Andy Dick, and Jeff Kahn. The film was considered a success, and led him to develop another film entitled Back to Brooklyn for MTV, a music video cable television network.
MTV was so impressed with Back to Brooklyn that they offered producer Jim Jones and director Stiller's No Puzzle Productions a 13-episode show in the experimental "vid-com" format. Entitled The Ben Stiller Show, this series mixed comedy sketches with music videos. It was one of five such shows that MTV planned in this format, designed to take over after the end of the long run of "Remote Control". The show parodied various television shows, music stars, and films. It starred Stiller, along with main writer Jeff Khan and Harry O'Reilly with occasional appearances by his parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, sister Amy Stiller, as well as cameos by Melina Kanakaredes, "Grandpa" Al Lewis, and the multitude of Club MTV dancers including Camille Donatacci, future wife of Kelsey Grammer. Notable were Stiller's impersonations of Tom Cruise, Al Pacino, and William Shatner, and the 1990 FOX lineup of shows including Booker, Alien Nation and Married with Children. This show was the proving ground for much of Stiller's earliest style development and new gag ideas.
Although the show was canceled after its first season, it led to another show entitled The Ben Stiller Show on the Fox Network in 1992. The Ben Stiller Show aired 12 episodes on FOX, with a 13th unaired episode broadcast by Comedy Central in a later revival. Among the principal writers on The Ben Stiller Show were Stiller and Judd Apatow, with the show featuring the ensemble cast of Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, and Bob Odenkirk. Both Denise Richards and Jeanne Tripplehorn appeared as extras in various episodes. Throughout its short run, The Ben Stiller Show frequently appeared at the bottom of the ratings, even as it garnered critical acclaim and eventually won the Emmy for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Variety or Music Program" after it was cancelled.[12]
After a few minor film roles in the early 1990s, such as Stella, Highway to Hell, and a cameo in The Nutt House, Stiller devoted his time to writing, fund raising, recruiting cast members, and directing Reality Bites.[11] The film was produced by Danny DeVito (who later directed Stiller's 2003 film Duplex and produced the 2004 film Along Came Polly). Stiller acted in the film, which was praised by some critics.
He joined his parents in the family film Heavyweights, in which he played two roles, and then had a brief uncredited role in Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore.
Next, he had lead roles in If Lucy Fell and Flirting with Disaster, before tackling his next directorial effort with The Cable Guy which starred Jim Carrey. Stiller once again was featured in his own film as twins. The film received mixed reviews, but was noted for being the film for which the highest salary was paid to a star for his work in just one film. Jim Carrey received $20 million for his work in the movie.[13] The film also connected Stiller with future Frat Pack members Jack Black and Owen Wilson.
Also in 1996, MTV invited Stiller to host the VH1 Fashion Awards. Along with SNL writer Drake Sather, Stiller developed a short film for the awards about a male model known as Derek Zoolander. It was so well received that Stiller developed another short film about the character for the 1997 VH1 Fashion Awards and finally remade the skit into a film.[11]
In 1998, Stiller put aside his directing ambitions to star in There's Something About Mary alongside Cameron Diaz, which accelerated Stiller's acting career. That year he also starred in several dramas including Zero Effect, Your Friends & Neighbors, and Permanent Midnight. Stiller was invited to take part in hosting the Music Video awards, for which he developed a parody of the Backstreet Boys and performed a sketch with his father, commenting on his current career. In 1999, he starred in three films, including Mystery Men, where he played a superhero wannabe called Mr. Furious. He returned to directing with a new spoof television series for FOX entitled Heat Vision and Jack, starring Jack Black, however, the show was not picked up by FOX after its pilot episode and the series was cancelled. 2000 would be a better year for Stiller as he starred in four more films including one of his most recognizable roles, as a male nurse named Greg Focker in Meet the Parents opposite Robert De Niro. MTV again invited him to make another short film and he developed Mission: Improbable, a spoof of Tom Cruise's roles in the films Risky Business, Magnolia, Cocktail, and Mission: Impossible.
In 2001, Stiller would direct his third feature film, Zoolander, which focused on the character Derek Zoolander (played by Stiller) that he developed for the VH1 Fashion Awards. The film featured multiple cameos from a variety of celebrities including Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, Lenny Kravitz, Heidi Klum, and David Bowie among others. The film was banned in Malaysia (as the plot centered on an assassination attempt of a Malaysian prime minister)[14] while shots of the World Trade Center were digitally removed and hidden for the film's release after the September 11 terrorist attacks.[15]
After Stiller invited Owen Wilson to star in Zoolander, Wilson returned the favor and invited Stiller to play Chas Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums. Over the next two years, Stiller continued with the lackluster box office film Duplex and several cameos in Orange County and Nobody Knows Anything!. He also guest-starred on several television shows, including an appearance in an episode of the television series King Of Queens in a flashback as the father of the character Arthur (played by Jerry Stiller). He also made a guest appearance on World Wrestling Entertainment's WWE Raw.[16]
In 2004, Stiller appeared in six different films, all of which were comedies, and include some of his highest grossing films. They include Starsky & Hutch, Envy, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, an uncredited cameo in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Along Came Polly, and Meet the Fockers. While Envy only grossed $14.5 million worldwide,[17] his most successful film of the year was Meet the Fockers, which grossed over $516.5 million worldwide.[18] In 2005, Stiller would begin his first attempt at a computer-animated film with Madagascar, which performed so well at the box office that it resulted in a sequel, due in 2008.
In 2006, Stiller had cameo roles in School for Scoundrels, and Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny, for which he served as executive producer. In December, Stiller starred in the lead role of Night at the Museum. Although not a critical favorite, it earned over $115 million in ten days.[19] In 2007, Stiller starred alongside Malin Akerman in the romantic comedy The Heartbreak Kid. Tropic Thunder, a film he directed, co-wrote and co-produced, and in which he starred with Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black, was released on August 13, 2008.
Stiller has several upcoming films in 2008 and 2009, including Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. His next starring role is in the sequel Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. He will provide a voice for one of the characters in The Smurfs. In February 2007, Variety reported that Stiller would star alongside Jason Schwartzman in the Paramount Vantage film The Marc Pease Experience, playing a former theater teacher,[20] and Twentieth Century Fox announced he would star alongside Tom Cruise in a comedy adaptation of The Hardy Boys entitled Hardy Men.[21] Stiller will produce the upcoming Date School. Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld run the Red Hour Productions company, which will produce the comedy television show Gods Behaving Badly, based on Marie Phillips' novel.[22]
Stiller is the "acknowledged leader"[23] of the Frat Pack, a core group of actors that has worked together in multiple films. The group includes Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, and Steve Carell. Stiller has been acknowledged as the leader of the group due to his multiple cameos and for his consistent use of the other members in roles in films which he produces and directs.[23] He has appeared the most with Owen Wilson, in nine films including: The Cable Guy (1996), Permanent Midnight (1998), Heat Vision and Jack (1999 television pilot), Meet the Parents (2000), Zoolander (2001), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Starsky & Hutch (2004), Meet the Fockers (2004), and Night at the Museum (2006); the two are set to co-star in Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian, scheduled for 2009. Of the 34 primary films that are considered Frat Pack movies, Stiller has been involved with 20, in some capacity. He is also the only member of this group to have appeared in a Brat Pack film (Fresh Horses).
Stiller is 5 ft 7 in (1.7 m) tall[6] and left-handed.[24] He dated several actresses during his early television and film career including Jeanne Tripplehorn, Janeane Garofalo, Calista Flockhart and Amanda Peet.[25][26] In May 2000, Stiller married Christine Taylor, whom he met while filming a never-broadcast television pilot for the Fox Broadcasting network called Heat Vision and Jack, which starred Jack Black.[27] The couple appeared onscreen together in Zoolander and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. He and Taylor reside in Hollywood Hills[6] and have a daughter, Ella Olivia, born April 10, 2002, and a son, Quinlin Dempsey, born July 10, 2005.[28]
Stiller is a supporter of the Democratic Party and donated money to John Kerry's 2004 U.S. Presidential campaign.[29] In February 2007, Stiller attended a fundraiser for Barack Obama and later donated to the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaigns of Democrats Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton.[30][31] Stiller is also a supporter of several charities including Declare Yourself, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation.[32]
In a 1999 interview with GQ and later in a 2001 interview with Hollywood.com, Stiller stated that he has bipolar disorder, an illness he said that ran in his family.[33] In interviews in November and December 2006, Stiller claimed that this earlier interview's comment about the disorder was false.[34] In one interview he said: "I said jokingly in GQ that I was, like, crazy, and it came out as: Ben Stiller, bipolar manic-depressive!"[35]
Stiller frequently does impersonations of many of his favorite performers, including Bono, Tom Cruise, Bruce Springsteen, and David Blaine. In an interview with Parade, he commented that Robert Klein, George Carlin, and Jimmie Walker were inspirations for his comedy career.[6]
Stiller is a self-professed Trekkie, and appeared in a 1977 book on fandom and conventions. He appeared in the TV special Star Trek: 30 Years and Beyond to express his love of the show, and in the comedy roast of William Shatner. He occasionally references the show in his work.
Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
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1987 | Empire of the Sun | Dainty | |
Hot Pursuit | Chris Honeywell | ||
Shoeshine | |||
1988 | Fresh Horses | Tipton | |
1989 | Next of Kin | Lawrence Isabella | |
Elvis Stories | Bruce | ||
That's Adequate | Chip Lane | ||
1990 | Stella | Jim Uptegrove | |
1992 | The Nutt House | Pie Thrower | cameo |
Highway to Hell | Pluto's Cook/Attila the Hun | ||
1994 | Reality Bites | Michael Grates | |
1995 | Heavyweights | Tony Perkis/Tony Perkis Sr. | |
2 Stupid Dogs | Tony Robbins-style character | ||
1996 | The Cable Guy | Sam Sweet/Stan Sweet | also director |
Flirting with Disaster | Mel | ||
If Lucy Fell | Bwick Elias | ||
Happy Gilmore | Nursing Home Orderly | uncredited | |
1998 | Permanent Midnight | Jerry Stahl | |
Your Friends & Neighbors | Jerry | ||
There's Something About Mary | Ted Stroehmann | earned salary of $3,000,000[36] | |
Zero Effect | Steve Arlo | ||
1999 | Black and White | Mark Clear | |
Mystery Men | Mr. Furious | ||
The Suburbans | Jay Rose | ||
2000 | Meet the Parents | Gaylord 'Greg' Focker | |
Keeping the Faith | Rabbi Jake Schram | ||
The Independent | Cop | ||
2001 | The Royal Tenenbaums | Chas Tenenbaum | |
Zoolander | Derek Zoolander | earned salary of $2,500,000[36] | |
2002 | Orange County | The Firefighter | cameo |
Run Ronnie Run | Himself | ||
2003 | Nobody Knows Anything! | Peach Expert | cameo |
Duplex | Alex Rose | ||
Pauly Shore Is Dead | Himself | cameo | |
2004 | Meet the Fockers | Gaylord 'Greg' Focker | |
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy | Arturo Mendes | cameo | |
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story | White Goodman | ||
Envy | Tim Dingman | ||
Starsky & Hutch | David Starsky | ||
Along Came Polly | Reuben Feffer | ||
2005 | Danny Roane: First Time Director | Himself | |
Madagascar | Alex | voice only | |
Sledge: The Untold Story | Commander | ||
2006 | Night at the Museum | Larry Daley | |
In Search of Ted Demme | Himself | ||
Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny | Guitar Store Dude | cameo | |
School for Scoundrels | Lonnie | cameo | |
2007 | The Heartbreak Kid | Eddie Cantrow | |
2008 | Tropic Thunder | Tugg Speedman | Also Writer and Director |
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa | Alex | voice only | |
The Marc Pease Experience | Jon Gribble | completed | |
2009 | Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian | Larry Daley |
post-production |
Little Fockers | Gaylord 'Greg' Focker |
announced |
Year | Title | Other notes |
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1989 | Elvis Stories | director and writer |
1994 | Reality Bites | director |
1996 | The Cable Guy | director |
1999 | Heat Vision and Jack | director |
2001 | Zoolander | director, producer, and writer |
2003 | Duplex | producer |
Crooked Lines | executive producer | |
2004 | Starsky & Hutch | executive producer |
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story | producer | |
2006 | Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny | executive producer |
2007 | Blades of Glory | producer |
2008 | Date School | producer |
The Ruins | producer | |
Tropic Thunder | director, producer, and writer | |
Unknown | Master Mind | producer |
Gods Behaving Badly | producer |
Year | Title | Role | Other notes |
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1987 | Miami Vice | Fast Eddie Felcher | single episode |
1990 | The Ben Stiller Show | Himself | director and writer |
Working Trash | Freddy Novak | television film | |
1992 | The Ben Stiller Show | Himself | director, producer, and writer |
1995 | Duckman | Harry Medfly | voice only; single episode |
1997 | Friends | Tommy | single episode |
1998 | Space Ghost Coast to Coast | Himself | single episode |
1999 | Heat Vision and Jack | Strip Club DJ | director and executive producer |
2000 | Freaks and Geeks | Secret Service Agent | single episode |
2001 | Undeclared | Rex | single episode |
2002 | The Simpsons | Garth Motherloving | voice only; single episode |
Prehistoric Planet | Narrator | first season | |
The King of Queens | Jerry | single episode | |
2004 | Curb Your Enthusiasm | Himself | three episodes |
2004-2006 | Arrested Development | Tony Wonder | four episodes |
2005 | Extras | Himself | single episode |
2007 | Family Guy | Himself | voice only; single episode (uncredited) |
2008 | Sesame Street | Himself | single episode |
Stiller has joined multiple artists for cameos in their music videos, including:
Preceded by Courteney Cox and Jon Lovitz |
MTV Movie Awards host 1996 (with Janeane Garofalo) |
Succeeded by Mike Myers |
Preceded by Chris Rock |
MTV Video Music Awards host 1998 |
Succeeded by Chris Rock |
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Persondata | |
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NAME | Stiller, Ben |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Stiller, Benjamin Edward |
SHORT DESCRIPTION | Actor, Comedian, Director, Writer |
DATE OF BIRTH | November 30, 1965 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City, New York, U.S. |
DATE OF DEATH | |
PLACE OF DEATH |