Ben Stiller warns current political climate making comedy ‘more challenging’

Actor says ‘speaking truth to power’ most important thing

Ben Stiller has said comedy had become “challenging” during Donald Trump’s second term but asked comedians to continue speaking up.

In a new interview, the Severance director talked about the political climate and social media making things difficult for comedians to take risks.

“We live in a world where taking chances with comedy is more challenging,” Stiller told Radio Times.

“You’re seeing that front and centre in our country,” he said. “But I think it is important that comedians keep doing what they’re doing, speaking truth to power and being free to say what they want. That’s the most important thing.”

The Zoolander star’s comments came about a month after TV talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by his network on 17 September for broadcasting his views about the death of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk.

Stiller was one of the first celebrities to respond to Kimmel’s suspension. “This isn’t right,” he posted on X at the time.

Kimmel’s show returned on 22 September. Ahead of its airing, Trump threatened to “test ABC” for putting the host back on air.

“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,” he fumed on Truth Social. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!”

Ben Stiller says comedy is ‘challenging’ under Donald Trump (Getty)

Stiller also talked about social media reducing attention spans and making the work of comedians harder.

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“You have things that go out to huge audiences very quickly,” he said in the interview. “I think we’ve reduced our attention spans down a little bit. I feel lucky to have grown up in the analogue world.”

Stiller was one of the many celebrities to show support for last weekend’s “No Kings” protests in the US to rally against Trump’s presidency.

Held in small towns and major cities across the country, the protests saw nearly seven million people take to the streets with creative signs and costumes just a day after the US president insisted he was “not a king” in an interview with Fox News.

Stiller shared an image of a protester holding a sign that declared: “No Kings except for Knicks player Jalen Brunson.”

The actor is currently promoting his Apple TV documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, in which he examines his relationship with his own parents, the acclaimed comedy double act Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.

Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller with their children Ben, centre, and Amy in a scene from ‘Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost’ (Apple TV+)

In the documentary, he opens up about his “worst decision” ever: cutting his daughter Ella from his 2013 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

In a discussion about his “perfectionism”, which he believes he inherited from his father, Stiller tells his 23-year-old daughter that he struggled to cut her from what would have been her film debut.

“I cut you out of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It’s probably the worst decision I ever made in my life,” says Stiller.

In response, Ella tells her father she was “really scared” during filming and accepts that the short scene she was in “didn’t make sense in the movie”.

Ella had been set to play a younger version of Odessa Mitty, the sister of Stiller’s titular character Walter Mitty. She went on to land film and TV credits in projects such as And Just Like That... and Happy Gilmore 2.

Stiller said that decision felt like more than a simple edit, explaining: “For me, it kind of goes deeper. What it relates to is my own issues with my own obsession with my work, or ‘perfectionism’.”