Chris Rock says reconciling his friend Ben Stiller’s marriage was ‘harder to make than a $600 million movie’

NEED TO KNOW

• Chris Rock Praises Friend Ben Stiller’s Marriage Reconciliation to Wife Christine Taylor After Their 2017 Split

• In a new interview with The New York TimesRock calls Stiller “one of the greatest comedic actors of all time”

• The interview was related to Stiller’s upcoming documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing is lost, which will be released in select theaters on October 17 and will be available to stream on Apple TV on October 24

Chris Rock gives credit where it’s due.

By speaking with The New York Times for the Oct. 16 profile on Ben Stiller, Rock, 60, gushed about his longtime friend calling him “one of the greatest comedic actors of all time.”

“I’m trying to get to where he is. It’s so far away I can’t even see him,” he said of Stiller, 59, who the outlet said has been in his orbit since the 1990s.

Elsewhere in the interview, timed for the October 17 release of Stiller & Meara: Nothing is lost — Stiller’s new documentary about his famous parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara — Rock praised Stiller and Christine Taylor for successfully reconciling after their 2017 split.

“A rebuilding marriage is harder to make than a $600 million movie,” he joked.

After the couple appeared to stay in each other’s lives post-split, with Taylor supporting Stiller at the 2019 Emmys, the Night at the museum The actor revealed in 2022 that they had reconciled during the pandemic while living together with their two children, Ella, 23, and Quin, 20.

Stiller reflects on the decision in the documentary, explaining: “All of a sudden we were in the house together and during that time I also started making the film. So there was a sort of bonding. We were talking about what we were going through, our problems, and looking at what my parents had gone through too, in a way that I hadn’t seen before.”

In addition to opening up about their split, Stiller and Taylor give some insight into what their relationship was like in the beginning, after they first met while filming a TV pilot called Heat Vision and Jack. At the time, Stiller remembers thinking, “I don’t want to become my parents,” after watching the famous comedians navigate their relationship while working together.

But just like his parents, Stiller and Taylor succeeded.

“I’ve really enjoyed being able to be at this point in our relationship where we can talk about all of this and the fact that there were so many elements in our relationship that in some ways mirrored my parents’ relationship that I wasn’t even aware of,” Ben told PEOPLE at the New York Film Festival premiere on Oct. 5 about what he learned about his wife through making the film. “And she always had this incredible perspective on things like that. And so I was just grateful that we could talk about these things and be here together now in this moment.”

Stiller & Meara: Nothing is lost will be shown in select theaters starting October 17 and will be available to stream on Apple TV on October 24.

Read the original article on People