Ben Stiller admitted that it was difficult to look at his once-crumbling relationship with Christine Taylor opposite his parents’ long-lasting marriage.
In his new documentary, Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, released on Friday, October 17, the actor, 59, opened up about growing an “aversion” toward working with Taylor, 54, on projects. When the pair decided to separate in 2017 after 17 years of marriage, those negative feelings came to a head.
“When we separated, my feeling was, like, ‘Oh, I’m failing at this and look at my parents. They have this incredible 60 plus years of marriage and I can’t live up to that,’” Stiller confessed.
Stiller and Taylor ultimately reconciled in early 2022, with him telling Esquire in February of that year that they were “happy.” However, the multihyphenate admitted it took a lot of work and reflection to get back to that point with his wife.
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“I feel like in our relationship that’s what you were feeling from me when we got together and started working together in the beginning. I had this natural aversion …” Stiller continued.
The pair have costarred together in a plethora of projects, including Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, Dodgeball, Dedication and Friendsgiving.
Taylor added, “I do feel like there was history and I think a lot of it was your experience about what that ultimately meant for a relationship. It can put extra strain when you’re eating, sleeping, breathing each other in that way. I also felt like there was a fear for you for me of what that would look like to the outside world. I mean it was very loaded.”
Stiller admitted he was “feeling like, wait a minute, I don’t want to become my parents.”
The Meet the Parents actor grew up in a show business family, with his father, Jerry Stiller, leading a comedy career that included starring in the hit sitcom The King of Queens, while his mother, Anne Meara, earned critical acclaim for her work on The Other Woman. (Jerry died in 2020 at age 92 and Meara died in 2015 at age 85. The twosome were married for 61 years until her death.)
“I remember my mom telling me, you know, you need to be there for your family,” Ben recalled, alluding to his busy work schedule keeping him away from kids Ella, 23, and Quin, 20, for long periods of time.
“I feel like there was a period of time where work was a really big priority and as we talk about this I now see that parallel with your dad,” Taylor added. “But when you put really good work out there, you will still see that one thing that didn’t work. The defeat. The absolute defeat. And the behind the scenes of how we navigate those waters for you, did sort of become us as a family saying, ‘What if?’ I think the word is …” she trailed off before Ben chimed in to say, “It sucks.”
Taylor recalled Meara giving her advice when she was facing turmoil in her marriage to Ben.
“Also, don’t try to pretend it’s not affecting you. For better or for worse, voice it,” she urged. “I remember Anne pulled me aside, like, ‘Take care of you.’ She had my back — and you were her son!”
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Fans of the couple first got a look at the documentary during its October 5 premiere at the New York Film Festival and were particularly moved by Ben’s candidness about his personal struggles amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My career had been going along for a long time but things actually weren’t great in my personal life,” he said. “I just felt out of balance and unhappy and kind of disconnected from my family, from my kids and just kind of a little bit lost.”
Ben continued, “I started to think about my parents and all the stress and tension I remember seeing as a kid and the pressure when they were working together and how they stayed together through it. … I think I wanted to somehow understand how they did it.”
