'The Interview': Ben Stiller learns the outcome of 'Fired'

From reading your career, a big change occurred around 2010. You cut back on big, broad comedies and instead started making films like Greenberg, While We Are Young, and Meyerowitz Stories. You did “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty'' and “Brad's Status.'' These are all about middle-aged men tackling big problems. Was that a conscious decision to start making a different kind of film? Yeah. Around that time, I moved back to New York. I had lived in LA for 20 years and wanted to spend more time at home and work closer to home. But for me, it was after Zoolander 2 that my perspective really changed. It was like, Everybody wants this, so I'll do it, and I enjoyed it, but no one else wanted it. I thought, but you said you want it! And really, was it that bad? That's where I felt, I had to make a choice. I want to do other things, and if someone offers me Zoolander 3, I'm not going to just quit. But Zoolander 2 gave me a gift that no one offered me Zoolander 3. (Laughs) Also, my marriage wasn't in very good shape. There was a lot going on.

You said your marriage didn't work out. You and your wife, Christine Taylor, were separated for a while, but have since reconciled. I saw her on Drew Barrymore's talk show, and she brought up the idea that separations and reconciliations are the result of what she calls a “growth spurt” in adulthood. What was the growth spurt during that time? When we separated, it was about what our relationship was like, how my life felt when I wasn't in that relationship, how much I love our family. I just had the space to know. We weren't together for about 3 or 4 years, but we were always connected. In my heart, there was never a time when I didn't want us to be together. I don't know where Christine was. I'll have to ask her, but due to the coronavirus we were all together in the same house.

It's God's work. Yeah. It took about a year of living in the same house before we actually got together. But that's a blessing, and I don't think many people get back together after breaking up. That won't be the case when I come back. You become more appreciative of what you have because you know we can't have it.

I hear you're working on a documentary about your parents, the comedy team Anne Mehra and Jerry Stiller. Even if you don't know this team, you definitely know that your dad played George Costanza's dad on “Seinfeld.” Yeah.

What did the making of this documentary reveal about your understanding of your parents? I realized that it all reflected my own issues with them. I feel very lucky to have all the footage of my parents and our family, including the Super 8 movies that my dad made and then I made, and the recordings he made. We talked for hours on end while my mom drew sketches and brainstormed ideas. Or sometimes they would record us simply because they wanted to hear our voices. I was thinking about it this morning. Everyone loves my father, even though there was some tension between me and how much I love my father and not wanting to be a father. And as a son, I want to be loved just like my father. Because my father was a wonderful person. But sometimes I say, “But, I am me.”