Ben Stiller: Family Legacy, Workaholism, & Saving his Marriage
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
Mayim Bialik
4.8 • 5.9K Ratings
🗓️ 26 September 2023
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Stiller joins us in the studio to discuss his parents’ influence, his mental health journey as a child, how the pandemic brought him and his wife Christine Taylor back together again, his workaholic tendencies, and what’s next for his career. He and Mayim share the nightmares they had the night prior, Ben shares his favorite Yiddish words and Mayim teaches him a new one during an impromptu Yiddish Word of the Day segment! Ben opens up about what it’s been like to make a documentary about his parents, how his marriage echoes his parents’ relationship, and his mother’s struggles with alcoholism. He recounts his feelings of separation anxiety as a child, the interesting forms of therapies his family tried, and his experience with transcendental meditation. Mayim details her digital detox and inspires Ben to consider giving it a try, and they discuss how creativity can add something incredible to or get in the way of a romantic relationship.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I constantly feel like I'm still just trying to figure out what do I really want to do? |
| 0:07.2 | What I really want to do or how do I want to get closer to what I you know expressing |
| 0:11.1 | myself and I feel like I've always been a late starter really with all of that and actually |
| 0:16.6 | coming to the party of realizing oh wait this is really about like you know kind of like |
| 0:21.1 | trying to find out more about myself express myself and open myself up because I think |
| 0:26.8 | it's also easy to do this stuff and not show yourself for many years you know I've done |
| 0:32.0 | things that are less personal. There's some aspect of myself that's coming out |
| 0:36.2 | in them but I think that's what every filmmaker is kind of working towards is trying to get |
| 0:41.2 | kind of closer to like you know being in touch with themselves and maybe exposing themselves |
| 0:46.2 | more. Because I haven't really done a lot of acting the last few years I'm really trying |
| 0:52.1 | to look at like well what is what's going to make me happy as a creative person. I do love |
| 0:56.8 | acting but honestly I have to say like I really love directing and I'll go to the point |
| 1:02.6 | place with like oh well I love directing but like oh but if you love directing you're |
| 1:06.1 | not really challenging yourself like you're you know you're being too easy on yourself |
| 1:09.5 | do the thing that's like that is that's more you know scary to you right and I think is |
| 1:14.6 | there is there a scary element acting acting yes definitely say more well you're so I just |
| 1:22.6 | the less I've acted over the last few years the more I've appreciated as a director working |
| 1:29.0 | with actors maybe somehow the acting watching the acting process from the outside and seeing |
| 1:35.8 | how hard it is I guess working with actors who I think are really good and seeing what |
| 1:41.9 | they put into it are you comparing meaning are you thinking like I don't do that I'm you know |
| 1:49.1 | I mean like is that yeah well I yes I'll always watch an actor go oh my god he did that or she |
| 1:53.8 | did that is like wait I never thought of like oh why you know that's real commitment level or I never |
... |
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