Actor and filmmaker Ben Stiller has opened up about the challenges of raising children and the lessons he’s drawn from his own upbringing.
In an interview with The Sunday Times published Oct. 11, the 59-year-old discussed how his family life, career, and upbringing have shaped his approach to fatherhood.
Stiller, who shares two children — Ella, 23, and Quinn, 20 — with wife Christine Taylor, said that despite his efforts to avoid repeating the parenting mistakes of his late parents, comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, he found that doing so was harder than expected.
“Like any parent, I remember things that weren’t happy about my childhood and go, ‘I’ll do better,'” Ben Stiller said. “And then I realized it was impossible to avoid making the mistakes they made.”
“I feel like I have a really great relationship with my kids, but it’s complicated and has at times been strained.”
He explained that his work commitments often kept him away when his children were younger.
“When they were young, I did not get it. I thought, ‘Oh, the kids are young, I can work away and be a good dad earning for the family,'” he said.
“But the bonds you form with your kids when they’re young are so important.”
Reflecting on his own upbringing, Stiller noted that his parents’ work in comedy frequently took them away from home when he and his sister were young.
“It totally affected us,” he said.
“I just remember missing them terribly. And when they would come back, my sister and I would act out ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ or something in the lounge.”
Stiller admitted that he hasn’t always handled parenting the way he wished he had.
He recalled casting his daughter in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” a film he directed in 2013, before ultimately cutting her role.
“My son tells me that being a dad might not have been at the top of my list,” he said.
The actor also spoke about how his separation from Taylor between 2017 and 2020 impacted their children.
“That was a strain on my relationship with the kids,” Stiller said. “And I’d think, ‘Well, my parents never did that.'”
“But a long relationship is hard. You lose the freshness.”
“I feel bad about what us breaking up did to the kids, but it was possibly the best thing to happen to Christine and me.”
In the recent documentary “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost,” he reflected further on that time, saying, “When we separated my feeling was like ‘Oh, I’m failing at this’ and ‘look at my parents, they have this incredible 50-plus-year marriage, and I can’t live up to that,'” according to People.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple reconciled, with Stiller crediting the time together for helping repair their relationship.
“All of a sudden, we were together in the house, and during that time, I started to make the movie too,” he said.
“So there’s this coming together — us talking about what we were going through, our issues, and looking at what my parents had been through, too, in a way I hadn’t looked at it before.”
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