Ben Stiller

She was studying with Uta Hagen, you know, HB Studios in the village, and a teacher named Alfred Linder, I remember she talked about, and was very committed to being a dramatic actress.

And then my dad...

dreamed of being Eddie Cantor and, you know, being a stand-up and, you know, both of them grew up during the Depression and I think for my dad, that was his beacon, his way out were these comedians and he had this drive that I'm amazed at what he had to do to get out of that Lower East Side tenement and realize, you know, his goal of doing this, which he did.

And when he met my mom, I think he, you know, fell in love with her and creatively he was just

so connected to her and he saw her brilliance and how good she was at acting and also he knew she was funny maybe it was just in you know in them interacting with each other and he drew her into doing this comedy act they'd been living together for seven or eight years married and were starving actors and he had this idea to take their situation and

turn it into these little sketches.

And that changed their lives.

But my mother really never had that dream.

So in approaching going on stage, and this is the irony I think is really, it's always fascinated me, is that my mother was naturally great at live performing.

And I feel that my father had to work at it more.

So that was sort of always the dynamic throughout their whole lives when they would approach having to perform.

The preparation was very different.

Well, I think he loved to perform, but he needed to just rehearse and go over it again and again.

And I think of myself, I don't love live performing.

I think I'm probably maybe a little more like my dad that way.

And my mom was much more... I don't know, she just would kind of go out there and go with it and had just...

this sort of natural ability to be on stage and let it happen and be comfortable on stage.

Yeah.

You know, I think most actors have a certain...

sense of wanting approval.