Ben Stiller's Real Name: Benjamin Edward Stiller

Quick answer: Ben Stiller's real name is Benjamin Edward Stiller. He was born on November 30, 1965, in New York City, the son of the comedy team Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. He starred in There's Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, and Night at the Museum, directed Zoolander and Tropic Thunder, and has directed episodes of Severance (Library of Congress; Britannica).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files him as "Stiller, Ben, 1965-." One citation, drawn from a book's first chapter, reads "Benjamin Edward Stiller, b. Nov. 30, 1965, in New York City." Other LOC citations confirm the date and city. Some online references add "Meara," his mother's surname, as an extra middle name. The LOC source does not include it, so this page uses Benjamin Edward Stiller.

Britannica says he grew up with performer parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, a celebrated comedy team for many years. He sometimes appeared on television with them as a boy and made Super 8 films parodying the blockbusters of the day. He enrolled at UCLA in 1983 but left within a year. After interning at the Actors Studio in New York, he landed a role in the 1986 Broadway premiere of John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves. He also had a brief stint in 1989 as a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live.

Career highlights

The Ben Stiller Show began on MTV in 1990 and was revived on Fox in 1992–93. Its writing staff, including Stiller, Judd Apatow, and Bob Odenkirk, won an Emmy. He directed and acted in Reality Bites (1994), seen as a defining Generation X film, and directed The Cable Guy (1996).

There's Something About Mary (1998) made him a movie star. Meet the Parents (2000), opposite Robert De Niro, led to sequels in 2004 and 2010. He cowrote, directed, and starred in Zoolander (2001) and joined Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums the same year. Hits like Dodgeball and Starsky & Hutch (both 2004), the Night at the Museum films, and his voice role as a lion in Madagascar followed. He wrote, directed, and starred in Tropic Thunder (2008).

Later work includes Greenberg (2010), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), While We're Young (2014), Zoolander 2 (2016), and The Meyerowitz Stories (2017). He directed the prison-break miniseries Escape at Dannemora (2018) and episodes of Severance (2022–).

Name notes for searchers

Ben is short for Benjamin, and Edward is his middle name. Stiller is his father's surname. His mother, Anne Meara, performed under her own name.