Earlier this year, The Hollywood Reporter assembled several high-profile television producers — Stiller included — for a roundtable discussion about the ins and outs of their industry. Dan Fogelman (“This Is Us”) shared a vulnerable personal account of the abysmal critical and commercial response received by his passion project, “Life Itself,” and how it affected his fear of failure. “For me, it was like when you’re a hypochondriac and then you get the cancer diagnosis,” he said. “The worst has happened. Now I can breathe. But then you also have this PTSD for a while. Everything else you’re putting out, you go, ‘Is it going to happen again?’ It scares the s*** out of you.”
Stiller responded directly to Fogelman, “I had that exact experience on “Zoolander 2.” It makes you question your own sense of what you think is good. That was the thing that shook me the most.” While “Zoolander 2” may have seemed like a waste of money and time to those outside its production, it’s clear from how involved Stiller was that he truly believed in his product. Though he currently produces Apple TV+’s critically lauded series “Severance,” it’s hard to imagine how good Vaughn’s pitch would need to be to convince Stiller to wade into such familiarly murky waters. Then again, maybe Stiller feels ready to apply the lessons he learned from “Zoolander 2.” Either way, his overall resolve is as strong as ever, telling his peers, “The worst happened, but I want to keep doing this, so I’m going to.”
