Ben Stiller admitted that he felt the hit when “Zoolander 2” bombed at the box office, and admitted that the experience helped him restructure his craft.
Stiller called the disappointing results of his film, “blindsiding,” during a discussion with David Duchovny on his new podcast, “Fail Better,” according to People. The 58-year-old, wrote, produced, directed and starred in the 2016 sequel, and admitted he had a hard time coping with this particular career failure, which in many ways felt like a personal failure to the star.
“I thought everybody wanted this,” he said, referencing the film. “And then it’s like, ‘Wow, I must have really fucked this up. Everybody didn’t go to it. And it’s gotten these horrible reviews.”
The original “Zoolander” was a huge box office success, so Stiller thought he was on to something with the continuation of the film. He quickly realized “Zoolander 2” was not well received, and struggled with the thought of that.
“It really freaked me out because I was like, ‘I didn’t know was that bad?’ ” he said.
“What scared me the most on that one was I’m losing what I think what’s funny, the questioning yourself … on Zoolander 2, it was definitely blindsiding to me.”
The famous actor and comedian confessed to taking the results personally.
“And it definitely affected me for a long time,” he said on the podcast, according to People.
Ben Stiller attends the season finale screening of Apple TV+’s “Severance” at DGA Theater Complex on April 08, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Actor Ben Stiller attends “The Meyerowitz Stories” photocall during the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 21, 2017 in Cannes, France. Photo by Antony Jones/Getty Images
Stiller said he pulled back when the film flopped, as he re-evaluated his approach to film. He gave himself some time to process the situation and said he learned and grew from having that down-time for self-evaluation.
“The wonderful thing that came out of that for me was just having space where, if that had been a hit, and they said ‘Make Zoolander 3 right now,’ or offered some other movie, I would have just probably jumped in and done that,” Stiller said.
Ben Stiller from Apple TV+’s ‘Severance’ attends Deadline Contenders Television at Paramount Studios Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Deadline Hollywood
Ben Stiller speaks onstage at the Inside “Severence” Panel during 2022 Comic-Con International: San Diego at San Diego Convention Center on July 21, 2022 in San Diego, California. Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Actor Ben Stiller poses outside The Standard hotel October 26, 2001 in Los Angeles, CA. Photo by David Klein/Getty Images
“But I had this space to kind of sit with myself and have to deal with it and other projects that I had been working on — not comedies, some of them — I have the time to actually just work on and develop.”
“Even if somebody said, ‘Well, why don’t you go do another comedy or do this?’ I probably could have figured out something to do. But I just didn’t want to,” he noted. (RELATED: Jason Biggs Admits To Hiding Alcoholism From His Wife)
Duchovny pressed the matter by asking Stiller, “Why didn’t you want to? Was it anger?”
“It was just hurt,” Stiller replied during the podcast.