Ben Stiller: The Influence of Theater

MakingOf: How has theater influenced you?

(Ben Stiller): Well I mean, when you're doing theater it's a different experience in terms of you're doing a play, you're doing something from beginning to end so the whole thing is really, very much in your hands when you're performing.  The whole rehearsal process is very much more involved.  I think it's, you know, just in terms of developing a character or really connecting with what's going on in a script you spend a lot more time doing that than people do a lot of the time making movies.  Some people do and some people don't but I think it gives you a really good basis in sort of understanding how to approach playing a part.  So that process of the rehearsal process and working with other actors and how it evolves over the course of rehearsal is, i think, a great thing.  And then once you're doing the play you're doing it every night from the beginning to end and you have this full experience.  In movies it's all, you know, broken up, and you're doing scenes out of order and it's a little bit less satisfying in terms of a whole experience because you don't really see it all together until the end.

(BS): I actually enjoy it more because you have a chance to get very specific with certain um...you have a chance to do it a number of times.  You can do different takes.  There's a safety in that that I like because it gives you a freedom to try things.  But doing a play there's nothing like that feeling of the energy that you get from the audience and when you're in it it's like doing one long continuous take.

MO: How do you prepare for a role?

(BS): Yeah it depends on the movie, it depends what the project is and what's required of the part.  And what the tone of the movie is, and who the director is, and what the approach is going to be.  That just differs from movie to movie.  So if it's a movie where you just want to be in the moment more and not think about it as much and just try to be as alive and vibrant and just, you know, there because if you think about it too much it almost can be detrimental, because you just want to let things happen.  I think a lot of actors like to do that, to sort of, not over rehearse for a movie so that you can experience things for the first time as they're happening. 

(BS): But I actually like to rehearse a lot and I think there's a lot you can get out of it whether it's just talking with the director and the writer, you know, the scenes, and the ideas behind them and different ways of going, because it's all about choices and what choices you decide to make for the character and the progression of the story.  So that's where the rehearsal process is really fun where you can talk about different ideas and that can be really where you make a lot of decisions that are going to effect the actual shooting.  Then there are other directors that actually like to rehearse the scenes a lot and I find that really helpful too. 

(BS): You know I think it all depends on the director that you're working with.  The last thing I worked on there wasn't any improvisation; we just worked off of the script.  By not having any improvisation and really going back to the script, almost like a play, the writer had done enough work on it and had thought about it enough and it was such a well written script that it supported that.  It really supported going back and figuring out what was there and figuring out ways to get to that.  A lot of the time movies are so much looser, and you're just sort of 'Oh we'll screw around with it on the day'...especially in comedies.

MO: How is improvising with a script?

(BS): No yeah that's fun, I mean, you never want to have to be improvising to come up with something funny that isn't there on the page and a lot of the really great comedic actors, a lot of the time they make it feel like it's in the moment or improvised.  You look at what Ricky Gervais does or something like that.  All of his episodes of "The Office" or "Extras" those are all totally scripted but they all feel incredibly loose and improvised. There's always thought behind it, I think, and I think anybody who would just sort of show up and say 'We'll wing it and figure it out' is, you know, you never want that pressure.

MO: What is the actor-director relationship like?

(BS): I also think it's an actor's responsibility to come with a point of view about their character.  You know that's what you expect as a director is that the actor is going to come there knowing who their character is and knowing what's important to you as an actor playing this part.  The director is looking at it as an overview of the whole thing.  But as a director I really appreciate when an actor cares that much and has thought it through that much and is always going to have a different point of view than what mine is, you know, which is what you want and that's why you hire that actor is you want to have somebody who really has...I think the best actors are really smart because they really do work hard at trying to understand where they're coming from and asking the right questions.  If they don't challenge you at all about it and if they don't have a point of view then you can't take them by the hand and do what they have to do.  That's the thing, you really are reliant on the actors to come and bring as much as possible to a movie.  So I feel like that's my responsibility as when I'm acting in a movie for the director, you know, is to bring as many ideas and hopefully a passionate feeling about what it is and who it is because that's what I would want as a director from an actor.

MO: Any advice for aspiring directors?

(BS): I would say just do your thing, keep on making movies.  Over the last ten years it's changed so much in terms of everybody now has access to be able to make movies and to get them out there for people to see, and that's a great thing.  So I would say keep on doing what you feel passionate about.  It always was the same thing for me starting out, it was just about, like when nobody was hiring me or nobody was interested then I would just go do my own thing.  Just to keep myself busy and just to create forward momentum.  Sometimes it's hard but, I've just found when you keep on creating and making things, making little shorts, or whatever it is, you get better, you feel better about what you're doing because you're learning and then also you're...making stuff and making movies. 

(BS): As a director it's hard to walk around saying 'I'm a director, hire me.'  Especially nowadays, it's almost impossible.  You have to do it.  And the catch 22 is that nobody is going to hire you to do it until you've done it.  The thing I've learned is that you get better and better every time you go out.  You learn more and more, and if you're learning and having fun and just doing it that feels good in itself.  So that would be my advice, just keep doing it.

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