Featured Image Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Topics: Entertainment, Parenting, US News, Celebrity
Liv Bridge
Topics: Entertainment, Parenting, US News, Celebrity
Ben Stiller has made a frank confession about the 'worst decision' he's ever made in his life.
The 59-year-old famed comedian and actor is renowned for his slapstick jokes and knife-sharp wit, as exhibited in his roles from There's Something About Mary to his part as Gaylord 'Grey' Focker in the film series Meet the Parents.
Throughout his career spanning the decades, Stiller boasts a hefty trophy cabinet from an Emmy Award, three MTV Movie Awards to a Directors Guild of America Awards, and even the Charlie Chaplin Award for Excellence in Comedy.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, as the son of two comedians who has gone on to make his own mark in the industry, Stiller defines himself as a 'perfectionist'.
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However, despite his keen eye for precision in his career, the Zoolander star revealed he does have one major regret that involves his personal relationship with his daughter and his work.
Stiller revealed in his new Apple TV documentary, Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, that he axed his own daughter out of a role in his 2013 movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
While directing and starring in the adaptation of 1939's James Thurber's story, Stiller's daughter, Ella, was set to play a younger version of Odessa Mitty, the sister of his character, Walter Mitty.
Yet he confessed he 'cut' her out and has apparently had to live with the loss of what would've been her movie debut ever since.
"I cut you out of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It’s probably the worst decision I ever made in my life,” Stiller said to Ella.
Although it sounds pretty brutal, the now 23-year-old shrugged off the move, telling her father that she recalled feeling 'really scared' during filming.
Besides, she also said the scene 'didn't make sense in the movie' anyway.
But Stiller suggested the decision still felt personal, explaining: "For me, it kind of goes deeper. What it relates to is my own issues with my own obsession with my work, or 'perfectionism'."
“The irony is, I thought I was doing so much better than my parents. I thought I was pulling it off,” he continued as he reflected on growing up under the acclaimed comedy duo, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.
“I was flying home on the weekends and having special places for the kids to play when they come visit the set, but in reality – and just hearing them talk about it – for them, it was the same thing I was going through as a kid, and I just couldn’t see that at all at the time.”
Nevertheless, and despite his snub, Ella hasn't shied away from the spotlight, going on to earn credited roles in TV shows and movies including And Just Like That..., Driver's Ed and Happy Gilmore 2.