Ben Stiller Stops By to Talk ‘Tower Heist’ and Moving Back to New York

Photo: The Howard Stern Show

Ben Stiller stopped by to promote “Tower Heist” and told Howard he balanced his busy schedule with long summer breaks. “I took all summer off,” he said. “So, [for] about 8 weeks this summer, I did nothing.”

He said it was important to have energy for his kids, as they give it right back: “Over the years, I’ve figured out how much I can handle and how much I can’t.”

He told Howard he learned this balance from a young age, when his parents were performing as the comedy duo Stiller and Meara. “They would take us with them [on the road] whenever they could,” Ben recalled.

Ben said he’d recently moved to New York City but denied Howard’s idea that Los Angeles was toxic “It’s not poisonous. I just wanted to get back to New York,” he said. “My daughter’s nine and my son’s six [and] I wanted them to have an East Coast experience.”

Ben later admitted L.A. had it’s drawbacks. “It’s a little more isolated because you can live a life where you never have to go on the street,” he continued. “I just missed New York. I missed that experience of the city.”

He laughed that he’d actually moved into an apartment in the same building that he grew up in and his parents still live in. “The rules sort of got established through experience…we got the apartment there and one day we were in the bedroom and we were talking and I looked in the doorway [and] my father was standing there. In our bedroom. So, that’s when we first realized we had to establish some ground rules,” he said.