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"I'm always willing to endure humiliation on behalf of my characters."

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More than a comic actor, Ben Stiller has built a career for himself as a comedy auteur. As a writer and director, Stiller has a creative voice as distinctive and singular as that of Orson Welles or Martin Scorsese. He just happens to use that voice to make everyone laugh. That he's one of the biggest comedic movie stars in the world doesn't hurt, either.

"I grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy."

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Born Into Comedy

Ben Stiller was born into comedy on November 30, 1965 in New York. His parents, Jerry Stiller and Anna Meara, were comedy legends before Ben was born, and he recalls his childhood as an unusual one. His family spent a lot of time traveling for work, and his parents would host parties where he would meet more celebrities in one night than most of us will meet in a lifetime.

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"My parents used to throw great New Year's Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment."

Ben had an interest in entertainment from the start, and was already a filmmaker before he was ten years old, shooting Super 8 movies with his friends and sister Amy. At nine years old Ben featured on legal drama Kate McShane (1975) with his mother, making his acting debut. From there he would make his way to NYC's First All Children's Theatre, featuring in plays like Clever Jack and the Magic Beanstalk, and would land a small part on soap opera Guiding Light (1952-2009) at fifteen.

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After catching some episodes of legendary Canadian sketch comedy show Second City Television (1976-84) in high school, Ben decided that sketch comedy was the way to go, combining his passions for acting, writing and directing. After graduating from Calhoun School in 1983, Stiller learned the ropes on the cabaret circuit and attended the University of California, Los Angeles to study film before returning to New York to take acting classes and try to land an agent.

"It was a mixed blessing to have famous parents. It was tough to go to auditions and be bad, since I couldn't be anonymous."

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Stiller's famous parentage and obvious talent allowed him to get his foot in the door of the entertainment industry right away, but finding his place within the industry was a struggle. While acting in a 1986 Broadway production of The House of Blue Leaves with John Mahoney, Stiller cast his co-star in a mockumentary and then in a short film spoof of The Color of Money (1986). Mahoney took on the Paul Newman role with Stiller playing Cruise's part. The short film quickly spread beyond the usual network of family and friends who enjoyed Stiller's work, finding its way to Saturday Night Live (1975-present), where it would air on television in 1987. In 1989, the show would hire Stiller as a writer and featured performer. For many comedians, this would have been the opportunity of a lifetime. For Stiller, it was simply a bad fit. He left after only four episodes, disappointed that they wouldn't let him create short films for the show.

MTV soon scooped Ben Stiller up, impressed by his short film Elvis Stories, starring John Cusack, Andy Dick and Mike Myers. Stiller's first work for the channel was a short film starring Colin Quinn, Going Back to Brooklyn, a parody of LL Cool J's "Going Back to Cali" (1988). This led to the MTV-produced The Ben Stiller Show (1989-90), a sort of free-form sketch comedy show, combining sketches, short films and music videos. The show only aired for thirteen episodes in total, but helped to establish a number of creatives who would go on to define the 1990s, including Janeane Garofalo, Bob Odenkirk and Judd Apatow.

The Director's Chair

A few years later Stiller would make his feature film directing debut, Reality Bites (1994) from a script by himself and Helen Childress. The film's producer would be none other than Danny DeVito, who would become a longtime collaborator of Stiller's, eventually directing Stiller in Duplex (2003) and producing Along Came Polly (2004). The movie was a hit at the box office, being the highest-grossing film of its first weekend. He then co-starred with his parents in Heavyweights (1995) and took on more acting work in Happy Gilmore (1996) as a creepy nursing home attendant, and featured in leading roles in If Lucy Fell (1996) and Flirting With Disaster (1996), before again taking the director's chair for The Cable Guy (1996).

Like Reality Bites, The Cable Guy was a box office success despite mixed reviews from critics. Reviewers often didn't know what to make of Stiller's work, but audiences found a quirky, unique voice in his films that they weren't getting from mainstream entertainment.

Around this time, Stiller would first develop the character of Derek Zoolander in a short film for the VH1 Fashion Awards, before putting more focus into his acting career, starring in the Farrelly Brothers' There's Something About Mary (1998), the film that made Stiller a comedy superstar. He would follow this up with a number of dramatic films and comedies like Zero Effect (1998) and superhero spoof Mystery Men (1999). He would come back to the director's chair for Heat Vision and Jack (1999). The pilot would ultimately fail to be picked up for a series, but became a cult favorite in its own right, launching the career of writer Dan Harmon, who would go on to create, co-create or produce a number of shows and movies, including Community (2009-15), Monster House (2006) with Heat Vision co-writer Rob Schrab, Anomalasia (2015) and Rick & Morty (2013-present).

Throughout the 2000s, Stiller's star continued to rise into the stratosphere. He directed Zoolander (2001), starred in Meet the Parents (2000) with Robert DeNiro and in 2004 alone, featured or starred in six of the biggest comedies of the year: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Aong Came Polly, Meet the Fockers, Starsky & Hutch, and Envy. In 2006, he would star in Night at the Museum (2006), a film that made a record-setting $115 million in two days.

In 2008 he would write, direct and star in the film many consider to be his directorial masterpiece, Tropic Thunder (2008), with Robert Downey Jr. and Heat Vision star Jack Black. An exploration of identity and integrity in the entertainment business, the film would pair Stiller with Tom Cruise, whom he had spoofed in a number of short films.

While Stiller has explored dramatic roles from time to time, there seems to be no chance of him leaving comedy behind any time soon.

"I don't devalue comedy as compared to drama. Not one bit."