Ben Stiller Quotes

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

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.

I love New York. I was sad, depressed and incredibly moved by our fellow countrymen and what they've done. I wanted to give people a chance to see something funny, have a distraction.

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

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.

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.

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.

It's hard to maintain a sense of dignity in an audition. I have done so many auditions where I've put it out there and have been met with that kind of blank stare - "Great! Thanks! OK! Great work! Thanks for coming in!" At the door I'm thinking, 'What the hell am I doing with my life?'

Maybe forced retirement isn't necessary after all.

A eugoogoolizer...one who speaks at funerals...Or did you think I was too stupid to know what a eugoogooly was?

The cliches are that it's the most generic Starsky and Hutch plot you can find.

You're freaked out that you're going to be having a child, and once you're looking after your daughter, it's the most beautiful thing in the world.

Zoolander was more of my own sensibility.

I'm always willing to endure humiliation on behalf of my characters.

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.

You have to stay in character in between takes.

My parents used to throw great New Year's Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment.

I'm not an expert on the Malaysian sense of humor.

First of all, the first cut of the movie was like three and a half hours and I walked away going, 'Wow, I know there's like twenty minutes that I can cut - ' when I first saw it 'But I don't know after that.' The first time I put up then in front of people I was like, 'Oh, my God, I can take that out and that out and that out.'

Fashion is so over the top.

Nobody makes me bleed my own blood - nobody!

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.

Well, this movie I've been working on for a while. I had the idea for the movie like twenty years ago when I was doing 'Empire of the Sun' in 1987 because at that time that's when all these Vietnam movies were being made and my friends and I were going on auditions for these Vietnam movies and my friends were getting them and going away to fake boot camps.

It's important that we came here, just to touch base here in this great country... When I was about 16 I came with my dad for a couple of weeks and had a great time and I've wanted to come back, it's been way too long. So, I'm very happy to be here and I want to come back longer with the rest of my family.

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

I think most politicians could take a dodgeball in the face.

God was showing off when he made you.

When I didn't have a family, I was much more of a workaholic. I still like to work, but I also want to be home with them. As you get older, you realize you need balance. If it's not fun, what's the point?

When you have kids you want to be able to go to movies and take the family too, and actually all enjoy it together. I don't think there are that many great, live action family movies that everybody can enjoy.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is.

As a kid I had dreams about being successful, thinking it would be cool. Then, when I was in my 20s, I really thought I had it much more figured out than I do now.

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.

When we were visiting New York City, I took my kids to the same playground where I went growing up. It was fun to feel that connection of having gone there as a kid and being there as a parent.

If you look at my eyes when I'm dancing, you'll see that glazed look.

I would like to do more dramas when I find a good role that will allow me to politely upset people's expectations of me as a comic actor.

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.

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

Whatever talent I had, I'm sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.

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

I grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy.

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

Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.

The failure of The Cable Guy impacted my career. I had to start writing and acting again.

Success doesn't necessarily mean happiness.

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

I think people will be curious to see what I can do as a dramatic actor.

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.

There's always an element of fear that you need to work a lot until people get sick and tired of you or finally figure out that you're a fraud after all!