Ben Stiller

Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, director, producer, and humanitarian known for his work in comedy films and television series that emphasize awkward, self-deprecating humor. The son of comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, he began his career in the 1980s with television appearances and short films before achieving breakthrough success directing and starring in Reality Bites (1994) and The Cable Guy (1996). Stiller directed and starred in satirical comedies including Zoolander (2001) and its sequel Zoolander 2 (2016), Tropic Thunder (2008)—which drew criticism for its portrayal of Hollywood excess and blackface satire—and starred in the Meet the Parents franchise, grossing over $1 billion worldwide across the series. As a producer, he executive produced the critically acclaimed limited series Escape at Dannemora (2018), earning a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Family Pictures, and co-created and directed episodes of Severance (2022–present), noted for its exploration of corporate dystopia. Stiller received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for The Ben Stiller Show (1992–1993). Since 2016, he has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), self-funding multiple field visits to refugee camps in countries including Jordan, Guatemala, and Ukraine to advocate for displaced persons, though his efforts have focused on select crises amid broader global displacement challenges.

Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller was born on November 30, 1965, in New York City to comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, who performed together as the duo Stiller and Meara after marrying in 1954. His father, born Gerald Isaac Stiller in Brooklyn on June 8, 1927, came from Ashkenazi Jewish parents of Austrian and Polish descent whose families had emigrated from Eastern Europe. Anne Meara, of Irish Catholic heritage from a family raised in rural Long Island, converted to Judaism prior to Stiller's birth, and the family observed Jewish traditions.

Stiller has one sibling, an older sister named Amy Stiller, born in September 1961. The family resided on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where Jerry Stiller, the eldest of four children from a working-class Lower East Side household, pursued acting after World War II service, while Anne Meara drew from her own challenging early life, marked by her mother's suicide, to build a career in comedy and theater.

Stiller's upbringing was deeply intertwined with his parents' professional lives in entertainment, as their nightclub and television appearances exposed him from childhood to the rhythms of show business, including frequent absences and the blending of family dynamics with comedic routines. This environment, while privileged in its cultural access, involved navigating the tensions of Jerry's ambitious drive and Anne's occasional frustrations with comedy's demands over her dramatic aspirations, shaping a household where performance was both central and sometimes strained.