Latest Ben Stiller Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• It's great to work with the people who make you laugh and who are funnier than I am.

  Ben Stiller

  People, Laughing, Make You Laugh

  "‘Watch’ Men". Interview with Angela Dawson, frontrowfeatures.com. July 24, 2012.

• When you're doing a comedy and you want to somehow satirise people who are taking themselves seriously, I think the most serious genre is the thing you're going to get the most out of. If you're trying to satirise a comedy, it's hard to do that - it doesn't really work as well. But I love the war movie genre and I'm a fan of all those movies that are part of what this movie is.

  Ben Stiller

  War, Thinking, Genre Is

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

• I was a bad student. I liked archaeology actually, I was interested in maybe becoming an archaeologist but I was such a bad student and had such bad grades that I wasn't going to get into any really good college so I fell back on acting.

  Ben Stiller

  College, Acting, Becoming

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

• Success doesn't necessarily mean happiness.

  Ben Stiller

  Mean

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

• It's what I wanted to do with my life. Not necessarily just direct Jim Carrey movies, but to direct and act and write and create and along the way discover what it is that I'm about.

  Ben Stiller

  Writing, Way, Wanted

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think this whole celebrity world is weird anyway. Weird and funny and kind of pathetic and yet so right for parody.

  Ben Stiller

  Thinking, World, Kind

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There's a sense here in L.A. that everybody's aware of everybody all the time. It's funny but we choose it. People who are here want to be here, including me.

  Ben Stiller

  People, Want, Including

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I recently watched that Lucie Arnaz-produced documentary [Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie, 1992] about her parents [Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz], and I saw so much of my own childhood there.

  Ben Stiller

  Home, Childhood, Parent

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't know what that weid fantasy is that makes people go, "Oh, you must have had a great childhood."

  Ben Stiller

  People, Childhood, Fantasy

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't think it's ever easy to be funny. I find it easy to amuse myself with a certain sort of cynical dark humor that tends toward the meaner side, like my character in Happy Gilmore. Those kinds of characters come easily to me.

  Ben Stiller

  Character, Dark, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I'm just not a naturally cheery person. I'm naturally moody. I know that from people who spend a lot of time with me. People who spend a lot of time with me may not wish to spend a lot more time with me.

  Ben Stiller

  People, Wish, May

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• When I was growing up, This is Spinal Tap [1984] was the ultimate comedy, and it was the kind of thing I wanted to do. But you get to a point with parody where you can't go much further because ultimately it's feeding off of somebody else's creativity.

  Ben Stiller

  Growing Up, Creativity, Spinal Tap

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• It's weird that people expect me to be funny. I find it a real burden when I'm expected to be humorous on talk shows.

  Ben Stiller

  Real, Humorous, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't even want to think of myself as an actor because it's such an insecure place to go.

  Ben Stiller

  Insecure, Thinking, Actors

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I was staying on [writer/director/actor] Eric Schaeffer's couch in New York, and he said, "I've got this movie [If Lucy Fell]. Can you do five days on it?" And I was like, "Yeah, anything. Twenty-four hours times five is 120 hours. Oh, great, I'll fill 120 hours of my life with something." So I did that and it was fun, and then I did Flirting with Disaster.

  Ben Stiller

  New York, Fun, Flirting

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I had two projects that fell apart during preproduction. The first one was this movie that Judd Apatow and I had written about two guys following the Rolling Stones. It was going to be half concert film, half pseudo-documentary. It was Mick Jagger's idea.The other one was Simple Plan, based on a novel by Scott Smith. It's a great book - really stark, not a comedy - about a guy who finds $4 million in a plane crash and decides to keep it.

  Ben Stiller

  Book, Simple, Ideas

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I'm Jewish, but my mom's Catholic, so the guilt area is covered. I have the highest expectations, along with the lowest. I tried to put as much of myself as possible in Reality Bites, but in terms of my humor, I'm still trying to figure out what my sensibility is. It's a process, really. I don't feel like I have a very clear idea of what I'm supposed to be, or even of how people perceive me, except that I got put into this Generation X file.

  Ben Stiller

  Mom, Reality, Ideas

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I've been to Japan but I've never been to China, I'd love to go to China. I don't know, I like to go to places that are remote. So, I think I'd like to do that more. And just sort of also explore not having a structured work life someday, to have more free time to sort of see what happens.

  Ben Stiller

  Thinking, Japan, Someday

  "Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig Talk THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, Filming in Iceland, Balancing Fantasy and Reality, Comparisons to the Original, and More". Press conference, collider.com. April 21, 2013.

• I'd love to travel more. I really look forward to traveling with my kids. I'm just waiting for them to want to travel with me.

  Ben Stiller

  Kids, Waiting, Looks

  "Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig Talk THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, Filming in Iceland, Balancing Fantasy and Reality, Comparisons to the Original, and More". Press conference, collider.com. April 21, 2013.

• I'm very interested in the early American history, the time when the country came together.

  Ben Stiller

  Country, Together, American History

• I love history. I'm very interested by it and I think it's great to have a movie that brings it alive in a way. It's sort of that romanticized version of it.

  Ben Stiller

  Thinking, Alive, Way

  "‘Night at the Museum’: Stiller and Van Dyke Talk Comedy". Hollywood.com interview, www.hollywood.com.

• I think you never want to have to go into the scene having to improvise; you want to make sure its working on the page. But I do like to have the ability to try stuff just in the moment, to give it some sort of spontaneity.

  Ben Stiller

  Thinking, Giving, Trying

  "Ben Stiller, Dick Van Dyke for “Night at the Museum”". Interview with Paul Fischer, www.darkhorizons.com. December 12, 2006.

• I don't play hockey at all. I'm not comfortable on skates.

  Ben Stiller

  Hockey, Play, Skates

• I studied Tom Cruise running in all the Mission Impossibles. I think he's one of the best screen runners.

  Ben Stiller

  Running, Thinking, Cruise

• I actually started working on Madagascar before my daughter was born.

  Ben Stiller

  Daughter, My Daughter, Madagascar

  "Ben Stiller, Dick Van Dyke for 'Night at the Museum'". Interview with Paul Fischer, www.darkhorizons.com. December 12, 2006.