Ben Stiller will get extraordinarily sincere about his personal shortcomings in a brand new documentary he produced about his mother and father, the late Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.
Within the forthcoming doc, “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost,” the “Severance” director speaks to his daughter, 23-year-old Ella, a few venture they labored on when she was younger ― and why it led to one among his most profound errors.
“I cut you out of ‘Secret Life of Walter Mitty,’” Ben Stiller says in dialog with Ella Stiller, referencing a 2013 film he directed and acted in.
“It’s probably the worst decision I ever made in my life,” the actor admitted, by way of Entertainment Weekly.
Ella Stiller was rather more forgiving than her father and advised him that her scene “didn’t make sense in the movie.”
However Ben Stiller stated the error embodied a much bigger fault he sees in himself.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin by way of Getty Pictures
“For me, it kind of goes deeper. What it relates to is my own issues with my own obsession with my work, or ‘perfectionism,’” Ben Stiller stated.
He received much more candid in an interview with The Sunday Instances, during which the actor stated he “probably fucked up more with my kids than my parents did with us.”
He added: “My son tells me that being a dad might not have been at the top of my list.”
“Like any parent, I remember things that weren’t happy about my childhood and go, ‘I’ll do better,’” he advised the outlet. “And then I realized it was impossible to avoid making the mistakes they made. I feel like I have a really great relationship with my kids, but it’s complicated and has at times been strained.”
“When they were young, I did not get it. I thought, ‘Oh, the kids are young, I can work away and be a good dad earning for the family,’” he stated. “But the bonds you form with your kids when they’re young are so important.”
