Since actor/director Ben Stiller and actress Christine Taylor split in May 2017, after an impressive 17 years of marriage, they’ve continued to appear at events together. It could be explained away by the fact that they’re co-parents, to daughter Ella, who turns 20 in April, and 16-year-old son Quinlin. But it’s not.
In an interview published Tuesday, Stiller confirmed to Esquire that he and Taylor decided they should move back in together during the pandemic so that he could see the kids during lockdown.
“Then, over the course of time, it evolved,” Stiller told the magazine. “We were separated and got back together and we’re happy about that. It’s been really wonderful for all of us. Unexpected, and one of the things that came out of the pandemic.”
The two had pledged that they would remain friends when they broke up.
“With tremendous love and respect for each other and the 18 years we spent together as a couple, we have made the decision to separate,” they said in a joint statement. “Our priority will continue to be raising our children as devoted parents and the closest of friends. We kindly ask that the media respect our privacy at this time.”
The profile noted that Stiller, now 56, is currently more focused on his family than on career, after years of favoring work, on movies such as Meet the Parents, Tropic Thunder and Zoolander. It’s something that he and his daughter have discussed.
“She’s pretty articulate about it, and sometimes it’s stuff that I don’t want to hear. It’s hard to hear,” the Severance co-director said. “Because it’s me not being there in the ways that I saw my parents [late actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara] not being there. And I had always thought, ‘Well I won’t do that.’ But then it’s that thing that, like, I was trying to navigate my own desire to fulfill the hopes and dreams I had, too. And that doesn’t feel great, but it’s important to acknowledge.”
Stiller also spoke about his relief over one of his movies, Zoolander 2, in which he starred and directed, having underperformed at the box office when it was released in February 2016. The reportedly $50 million movie made just $29 million domestically.
“If Zoolander 2 had been a huge hit, and then people were saying Zoolander 3! ‘Do this movie! That movie!’— that might have taken me off the road of having the space to work on developing Dannemora,” he said of the Emmy-nominated 2018 miniseries Escape at Dannemora that he directed. “I might have gotten distracted by other bright shiny objects, but instead it opened a path where I could just do what I’d honestly wanted to do for years and years, which was: just direct something! To say, I’m just going to work on this project that I want to work on, because it takes a little time to get these things going, and if you don’t stick with it you don’t get there.”
