In this week’s episode of LOL Radio’s Comedy Gold Minds with Kevin Hart, the Philly native is joined by comedian/actor/director and comedic powerhouse Ben Stiller. The two discuss all things comedy, including growing up with comedic parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, creating The Ben Stiller Show, what it’s like to act and direct a film at the same time, and why he thinks his movie Tropic Thunder would never get made today.
One of the leading movie stars of the early 21st century, known for his comic portrayal of neurotic or aggrieved characters.
Stiller was the son of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, who for many years were a celebrated comedy team. While growing up, he occasionally appeared on television with his parents and made his own amateur Super-8 films, which often parodied blockbusters of the time. In 1983 Stiller enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, but dropped out less than a year later. After working as an intern at the Actors Studio in New York City, he landed a role in the Broadway premiere (1986) of John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves and subsequently reprised it when the play was adapted for television (1987). Bit parts in films followed, as well as a brief stint (1989) as a writer and performer on the sketch-comedy series Saturday Night Live.
In 1990 Stiller debuted his own sketch series, The Ben Stiller Show, on MTV. Although the show was canceled within months, a revived version aired on the Fox network in 1992–93. Featuring a young ensemble cast, The Ben Stiller Show lampooned popular culture in an anarchically spirited fashion, and its writing staff (which, besides Stiller, included Judd Apatow) earned an Emmy Award. After the show was again canceled, Stiller directed and acted in the dramedy Reality Bites (1994), a portrait of disaffected, media-saturated young adults that was considered a defining representation of Generation X. He stepped behind the camera again for The Cable Guy (1996), a dark comedy starring Jim Carrey, but the film was poorly received.
Stiller won praise for his lead role in the art-house picaresque Flirting with Disaster (1996), but it was his performance as a lovelorn nebbish in the gleefully vulgar (and wildly popular) comedy There’s Something About Mary (1998) that made him a big-screen star. After demonstrating his versatility with such roles as a heroin-addicted screenwriter in the drama Permanent Midnight (1998), Stiller elicited laughs in Meet the Parents (2000) as a man whose awkward attempts to impress his prospective father-in-law (played by Robert De Niro) invariably go awry. The film was a box-office hit and led to equally farcical sequels in 2004 and 2010. Stiller next starred as a dim-witted fashion model in the madcap Zoolander (2001), which he also cowrote and directed, before joining the ensemble of Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).
Laugh Out Loud is a comedy brand and multi-platform network founded by the world’s top comedian Kevin Hart. Through his network, Hart delivers his vision for the future of comedy: social, mobile, multicultural and seriously funny. From stand-up legends to globally-recognized digital influencers, Hart and LOL curate comedy’s boldest voices to produce original scripted and unscripted series, stand-up specials, live broadcasts and special events. Hart brings the groundbreaking social-first strategy that earned him 100 million+ followers to Laugh Out Loud, with one core mission: keep the world laughing. Dope Comedy. Delivered Daily. Always On. Always Loud. Directly from Kevin Hart and his hand-picked crew of comedic rockstars.
