Ben Stiller once saw an article urging Hollywood to “stop putting Ben Stiller in comedies,” and left “SNL” after four episodes because “I got too nervous.”

Ben Stiller was the latest guest on The New York Times podcast “The Interview” and admitted he still doesn’t understand why he became such a popular comedy star in the late 1990s and 2000s. His work self-directed “The Cable Guy” in 1996 was followed by the double of “There’s Something About Mary” in 1999 and “Meet the Parents” in 2000, both of which grossed more grossed $330 million at the worldwide box office and made Stiller a successful actor.

“I remember opening the LA Times and there was this writer who wrote a letter: ‘Dear God, stop putting Ben Stiller in comedies,'” Stiller said of this period of his career. “I was like, I don’t know, I’m here, I love doing what I do. But only in retrospect can I say, “Wow, something happened that I was lucky enough to be a part of.” » But I don’t know what the spirit of the times was. You can look at comedies from the 2000s, and they had a specific kind of thing, a tone, and there were a lot of good things in those comedies that we don’t have today. I don’t know if you can recreate this.

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Stiller’s film success ignited through his acclaimed television work on “The Ben Stiller Show,” which only began when he decided to leave his gig at “Saturday Night Live” after just four episodes. Stiller joined the NBC sketch comedy series as a featured writer and performer in 1989. He remembers “SNL” boss Lorne Michaels reacting to the news by saying, “Ben’s going to do what Ben will do. »

“I knew I couldn’t make it there because I wasn’t good at performing,” Stiller said of his exit from “SNL.” “I got too nervous. I didn’t like it and I wanted to make short films. So at the time, there were reasons, and I had the opportunity to do this show on MTV (“The Ben Stiller Show”). It was my dream to go on “Saturday Night Live,” but looking back on it, I don’t remember exactly how much courage I had, but for some reason I followed that instinct.

Stiller told the Times that he has never been too strategic throughout his career. For example, he decided to star in “Night at the Museum” not because he thought it would launch a new franchise, but simply because “I grew up near the natural history museum and I felt says, “If I was a kid, I would love this and it would be fun to do.

“Night at the Museum” became a franchise for Stiller, hugely successful with $1.3 billion earned over three films. As the motivations for making sequels become more corporate, Still said all three films were fun to make.

“I’m not going not I want to work with Robin Williams or Shawn Levy,” Stiller said of directing the third “Night at the Museum” film. “The only thing that nagged at me was that I loved making other types of films as a filmmaker and I never really stopped making time to do that.”

As for the philosophy that now guides his career, Stiller said: “I’m at this point in my life, do I really want to take this chance now? How much do I care about the quote-unquote bad outcome? That interests you a little less. The day after a problem or a bad review, it’s not like anything has changed in your life. It’s just how you feel. You feel embarrassed or you think, “Damn, I wanted to be the winner.” But winning doesn’t always happen. This usually doesn’t happen. So how to live with that?

Stiller has been making the press rounds in support of Season 2 of “Severance,” which launches Jan. 17 on Apple TV+. Visit the Times website to read Stiller’s full discussion on “The Interview” podcast.

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