LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Ben Stiller: Mary
built 203 days ago
In 1998, Stiller put aside his directing ambitions to star in There's Something About Mary alongside Cameron Diaz, which skyrocketed Stiller's career. In that same year he ... starred in several dramas including Zero Effect, Your Friends & Neighbors, and Permanent Midnight. Stiller was invited to take part in hosting the Music Video awards, for which he developed a parody of the Backstreet Boys and performed a sketch with his father commenting on his current career. In 1999, he starred in three films, including Mystery Men where he played a superhero wannabe called Mr. Furious. He returned to directing with a new spoof television series for FOX entitled Heat Vision and Jack, starring Jack Black. However, the show was not picked up by FOX after its pilot episode and the series was cancelled.
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In 2001 Stiller once again teamed with Wes Anderson collaborator Wilson for the widely praised comedy drama The Royal Tenenbaums. Cast as the estranged son of eccentric parents who returns home, Stiller infused his unmistakable comic touch with an affecting sense of drama that found him holding his ground opposite such dramatic heavies as Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston. Though his work in 2002 offered little more than a few cameo performances and some vocal contributions to various animated children's shows, the busy comedic actor returned to the big screen for the 2003 comedy Duplex, directed by Danny DeVito. Though the film pairs Stiller and Hollywood bombshell Drew Barrymore as a couple willing to go to horrific extremes to land the much-desired eponymous living space, reviews were unkind and the comedy died a quick death at the box office. Stiller's next film -- the romantic comedy Along Came Polly -- fared considerably better on a fiscal level, but suffers from one unshakable problem: the complete implausibility of the central premise. Moreover, to many, it seemed almost desperate, at times, to top There's Something About Mary from the twin standpoints of scatology and raunch.
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With two comedian parents, it's no surprise son Ben followed in their footsteps, shooting homemade films at age 10 on a Super 8 and later performing in theater and television. Directing Reality Bites put him on Hollywood's radar. After two failed TV shows and work in independent films, Stiller got his big break in 1998 with the Farrelly brothers' gross-out comedy There's Something About Mary. Since then, his work has been hit (Meet the Parents, Dodgeball) and miss (Mystery Men, Envy), and audiences tend to either love or hate Stiller's offbeat brand of satire.
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Stiller was next featured alongside longtime friend Janeane Garofalo in "Mystery Men" (1999), a disappointing comedy centered around a band of off-kilter superheroes. He rebounded the following year with a starring role in the oddly charming sleeper romance "Keeping the Faith", playing a rabbi who finds himself falling for the same childhood friend (Jenna Elfman) his best friend (Edward Norton as a Catholic priest) is ... in love with. That same year he had a bona fide box-office hit with "Meet the Parents", starring as a man driven to desperation by the overprotective and overbearing father (Robert De Niro) of his would-be fiancée (Teri Polo). The feel-bad brand of slapstick comedy connected with a large audience, and Stiller proved not only as lovable a loser as he had in "There's Something About Mary", but a worthy screen partner of De Niro. Acting turns in the independents "The Suburbans" and the aptly named "The Independent" rounded out 2000 for the actor.
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