Ben Stiller’s daughter found out the hard way that you should never work with children, animals – or your dad

The actor said cutting his flesh and blood out of his own film was the ‘worst decision’ he has ever made – but he should never have got her involved in the first place, writes Victoria Richards

Oh, no. Ben Stiller has not only broken the cardinal rule of show business – never work with children or animals – he’s also broken the cardinal rule of family loyalty, too. from watching Succession?

The actor and director has confessed that after hiring his daughter, Ella, for a part in his 2013 filmThe Secret Life of Walter Mitty, he then did the unthinkable: he fired her. And with some hefty hindsight, he’s since said that cutting her out of what would have been her film debut was the “worst decision” he has ever made.

In his new Apple TV+ documentary, Stiller and Meara: Nothing Is Lost, he told the (now) 23-year-old that he puts the badly handled situation down to his own obsession with his work and his pursuit of “perfectionism” – and while Ella said she now accepts the short scene “didn’t make sense in the movie”, her brother Quinn, 20 – also featured in the documentary – hinted that it did cause a family rift.

“You have all these hats that you’re trying to balance, you know?” Quinn told his dad. “Being a director, an actor, you know, a producer, a writer, but also, just, like, a father, right? And sometimes I felt that that would come, you know, last to these other things.” Can we all say: awkward.

But personally, I’m not surprised. You should never, ever work with (or, more pressingly, for) your relatives. Trust me – for I’ve trodden that murky path and only just come out unscathed.

Long before being a “nepo baby” became a thing, I confess: I worked for Dad. He worked in a recruitment office in Ilford. And every week during the summer holidays when I was (first) off school, then (later) back from university, I would pop along to his office on the 179 bus through the concrete spires of east London to make tea, tidy the filing cabinet and sometimes get to use the computer – a treat in 1997, believe me.

Such a thrill, to upload CVs into a database! Such halcyon honours to get to do the “bun run” along to the local bakers, with a careful note in my pocket to remind me what everyone liked! And Jo wanted a Tottenham slice; and Robert a giant cherry bakewell; and Dad – well, he’s always been partial to pain aux raisins, which was far too posh to find in those days, so I got him a teacake. I felt so grown-up – I even earned the grand total of 20 quid a day – which in those days was brilliant.

Was I being diddled? For an eight-hour shift, probably – but it taught me that to earn money, sometimes you have to do mindless, boring, repetitive things. You have to put the graft in, basically. First jobs are supposed to be boring – we’ve talked about that before.

But it also taught me one other thing, because it wasn’t all roses: it’s difficult, working with your family.

Firstly, you have the awkward issue of how to get to and from the office – nobody wants to be seen getting in (or out of) the boss’s car in the morning – which is why I opted for the bus. Secondly, you’re achingly aware the entire time that the only reason you are there is because it’s your parent, because you suck at maths (in my case) and there’s no way anyone would give a child – a truly awkward 16-year-old in the bottom maths set, someone who is verging on having dyscalculia when it comes to equations and adding up – a job in an actual office for any other reason.

Thirdly, you have to spend a lot of time with your parent – which is anathema to teenagers, actual hell – and fourthly, you can still get fired. My cousin, who’s older than me, worked in my dad’s office, only to get given the chop for “not taking it seriously” and ringing all her mates on the office handset, tying up the line for hours. He did the same thing with the sons and daughters of friends of the family, too – which never goes down well, even if they are playing solitaire all day and deserved it.

Still, I could do with some extra cash now, actually. I might call my dad – see if he needs a hand with the gardening...