‘The Interview’: Ben Stiller knows how ‘Severance’ ends

In my reading of your career, around 2010, there is a real change. You started doing less of the big, broad comedies and instead made movies like “Greenberg,” “While We’re Young” and “The Meyerowitz Stories.” You did “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and “Brad’s Status.” These are all about middle-aged guys working through the big questions. Was it the result of a conscious decision to start making a different kind of film? Yes. Around that time I moved back to New York. I had lived in LA for 20 years and I wanted to try to spend more time at home and try to work closer to home. But for me, where it really changed in terms of my outlook was after “Zoolander 2.” It was the feeling that everybody wants it and I want to do it and I had fun doing it and then nobody wanted it! I was like but you said you wanted it! And was it really that bad? That’s where I was, I have to make a choice. I want to do these other things and not go off if someone offers “Zoolander 3.” But “Zoolander 2” gave me the gift that no one gave me “Zoolander 3.” (Laughs.) Also my marriage was not in a good place. A lot happened.

You mentioned that your marriage was in a bad place. You and your wife, Christine Taylor, separated for a while and then reconciled. I saw her on Drew Barrymore’s talk show, and she brought up the idea that the separation and reconciliation was a result of what she called adult “growth spurts.” What was your growth spurt during that period? When we broke up, it was just having the space to see what our relationship was, what my life felt like when we weren’t in that relationship, how much I loved our family unit. It was like three or four years that we weren’t together, but we were always connected. In my mind I never wanted us to be together. I don’t know where Christine was, you’ll have to ask her, but Covid brought us all together in the same house.

An act of God. Yes. It was almost a year of living in the same house before we were actually together. But I’m so thankful for it, and I don’t think many people get back together when they break up. There is nothing like it when you come back. You have so much more appreciation for what you have because we know we couldn’t have it.

I understand you are working on a documentary about your parents, Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller, the comedy team. If people don’t know the team, they definitely know that your dad played George Costanza’s dad on “Seinfeld.” Yes.

What has working on the documentary revealed to you about your understanding of your parents? I realize it all reflects back on my own issues that I have with them. I feel so lucky that I have all this footage of my parents and our family from these Super-8 films that my dad took and then I took and footage that my dad made. Just hours and hours of them talking to my mom while writing sketches or coming up with ideas. Or sometimes he recorded us just because he wanted our votes. I thought about it this morning: how much I love my dad, but also the tension of not wanting to be my father, but everyone loves my father. And as a son, I would love to be loved like my father was because he was a lovely person. But then there is also that, But I am me.