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Good One

Ben Stiller Explains Severance’s Early Days, Mysteries & "Weird" Tone, Talks Happy Gilmore 2

Good One

Vox Media Podcast Network

Comedy, Comedy Interviews

4.71.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 66 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Good One, Ben Stiller joins us for a conversation about his journey from being a comedy superstar in legendary films like Zoolander, Tropic Thunder and Meet the Parents, to the director and executive producer who brought the creepy, crazy world of Severance to life on Apple TV+. 00:00 Intro 00:01:00 Happy Gilmore 2 00:04:30 Severance 00:18:34 The Mystery of Severance 00:23:48 Severance season finale 00:31:17 The Cable Guy vs Severance 00:38:07 Tropic Thunder 00:43:40 Working with Robert DeNiro 00:46:10 Zoolander 00:48:40 Sondheim 00:52:04 Parenthood 01:05:28 The Laughening Round Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

It was the one time I wished I did not have courtside seats because I could see like Miles Turner like looking down.

0:05.3

I mean, they almost like fell on top of us.

0:07.7

And it was just awful.

0:09.5

It was the worst.

0:14.9

This is Good One.

0:15.9

I'm Jesse David Fox.

0:16.8

Senior writer at Bolteran author of comedy book.

0:19.1

My guest this week is Ben Stiller.

0:23.1

The Ben Stiller.

0:31.1

We talk about Severance and what it's like returning to the Adam Sandler universe of movies appearing in Happy Gilmore, too.

0:36.6

We talk about also a lot of the comedies Ben Stiller made and how it reflects the work he's doing on Severance.

0:39.6

We touch on Zoolander, The Cable Guy, Tropic Thunder,

0:44.1

and why that movie more than couldn't be made today, probably why it should it.

0:48.0

When we spoke, Ben was about to shoot the newest movie in the Meet the Parents series with Ariana Grande.

1:14.4

So we talk about that and what it's like returning to the world of big studio comedies after years away from them. So here is Ben Stiller. I'm here with Ben Stiller. Hello. Much for joining me. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. So I'm so excited to talk to you about severance and directing, but I just watched Happy Gilmore 2, and I thought you were so good in it. I was really thrilled to see you being so loose and just like being in a comedy just like full on. Oh, it was so much fun.

1:15.8

It was, yeah.

1:16.7

Can you talk about a time on set what it felt like, what the experience was like for you?

1:22.2

Well, it was pretty crazy because it was, you know, being back to doing doing that character which i did for a couple days

1:31.7

whatever 30 years ago whatever it was and i'm friends with adam and it was great to you know just i've been

1:38.7

around hanging out with him and we've had fun over the years as friends and worked together in other

1:44.0

projects but just something about when we did that first scene where we first out with him and we've had fun over the years as friends and worked together in other projects.

1:44.8

But just something about when we did that first scene where we first meet up again, it was just

...

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