On with Kara Swisher - Why Ben Stiller Made Severance (and Doesn’t Care about What Elon Says About Him)

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Ben Stiller knew he needed to make Severance the moment he read an early version of the show in a writing sample its creator, Dan Erickson, submitted to his production company. Now, years later, Severance is a hit, reportedly generating $200 million for Apple TV, and Stiller is the series’ executive producer and go-to director responsible for some of its most pivotal episodes. Kara talks to Stiller about the most poignant themes of the show, from its commentary on surveillance and technology to its meditations on trauma and identity. Plus, they chat politics — including Stiller’s reaction to an angry post about him by Elon Musk and his view on making political art now.  Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find us on Instagram and TikTok @onwithkaraswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The M7 is a little bit picks up noise a much better mic. So okay. How's that? Yeah, that's good. You're very manly. It's great Okay, good good Hi everyone from New York magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. Today I'm talking to actor, director and producer Ben Stiller, someone I've gotten to know over the past few years and really enjoy talking to. I really enjoy the second season of his hit series Severance and it's finally arrived after almost three years.

I like the first season, but the second season has really taken it to a new level. This is Apple TV's dystopian workplace comedy thriller about a company that's taken work-life balance to the extreme. In the world of Severance, employees at the company called Lumen can choose to sever their brains into two selves, one for work and one for living. When they clock in at 9 a.m., their brain is wiped clean of the outside world, and when they clock out at 5 p.m., it's wiped clean of work. I just love this show. I can't explain why you have to watch it.

It's about a lot of things that are going on today, but it's a lot of things that have gone on for a while, and it's about who you are and the unconscious. It's also very, very funny, which is the best part of it. Ben is the show's executive producer, and he's directed many of the episodes, so we're going to get into the themes, big ideas, and creative choices that have gone into the series, which is written by a man named Dan Erickson. It's his first outing, and what an impressive outing it is. Severance is also a success for Apple TV. It's reportedly generated $200 million for the streamer. We'll talk about his experience working with the tech giant, get his views on how tech money is impacting Hollywood, and how Trump's return could affect the ability of artists to get

their stories made. On that note, our expert question this week comes from Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw, who writes a weekly newsletter called Screen Time about the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. So stick around. Support for the show comes from NerdWallet. When it comes to finding the best financial products, have you ever wished that someone would do the heavy lifting for you? Take all that research off your plate? Well, with NerdWallet's 2025 Best of Awards, that wish has finally come true. The nerds at NerdWallet have reviewed more of Awards, that wish has finally come true. The nerds at NerdWallet have reviewed more than 1,100 financial products

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vox ca right now and support this show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Ben S., welcome and thanks for being on On. Hi Kara S. Hi Kara S. That's right. That's obviously a severance reference for people who don't know. This show is about a world in which you can become a different person during working hours. The person is called your Innie and it is you but your brain wiped of all the details of your outie life. So the Innie is you but not really you.

It's without a lot of information or background. I'm just curious, have you ever thought about what your Innie would be like? You know, recently I've been thinking about it actually, but I think, you know, the innies are more innocent. They're less corrupted by life experience. And so I guess my any would be like a little bit more, you know, fun loving, innocent, playful, though I think I am still playful in certain situations, but I do feel like I'd probably be maybe like a little less sort of like hunched and like stressed, you know?

Well, you know, it's interesting because some people's innies are not like on the show, like Helly's is quite angry, right? She's instantly angry and her Audi is also angry in a different way. Yeah, I mean, I think Heli is, you know, she's rebellious and curious and not a rule follower. And yeah, she's got a lot of, you know, it's like, I don't know if it's necessarily anger as much as, you know, sort of like this questioning of authority and not taking things, not taking things at face value and accepting

them just because they tell us we should accept them. Right. So you wonder where that comes from, right? Because a lot of them do and then they suddenly get rebellious pretty quickly, all of them by reading books or going down the hall to see a potential boyfriend or whatever. They lose their, they become outies pretty quickly, I would say. Yeah. they become outies pretty quickly, I would say. Yeah, I mean, we looked at it sort of like the first season was these outies were sort of, you know, kids, you know,

they're pretty young, they're only like two, Mark's only probably like two years old and Irving's maybe was there, you know, a few more years, but they're kind of innocent and childlike to a certain extent, but also have developed personalities. And then as the season evolved, and as the second season is starting to evolve, I think they're kind of becoming more adolescents

and more kind of, yeah, self-empowered and questioning authority. And so I think there's like a maturation that's happening with them slowly. Right. And a cynicism that goes with it because they're beginning to see things. So would you ever do get severed? I'm just curious.

I was thinking, I was talking about with my wife, Amanda, like would you let it happen? She said it would be impossible to sever me because I'd be the same irritating person. I mean, I don't know if I'd want to be totally cut off from part of my life experience. I think in retrospect, when I look back at painful situations I've been in or things that have happened in life that didn't feel good, I could imagine not wanting to go through that pain. But I also think that one of the ideas of the show is this questioning of what can you actually cut off, right? I think that one of the ideas of the show is this questioning of what can you actually

cut off, right? Because we all have to deal with everything on some level. And I think it's also what I was really attracted to when I first read the script, too, is there's so many different ideas of what severance could be a metaphor for. And I think we all do sever to a certain extent when we check out, if you have a drink or you take a gummy or you watch a TV show or if you go on your phone. I mean, we all find ways to cope with the everyday sort of torrent of stuff that's coming at us in life.

Right. It's also, I go to hardware stores and browse. I do. I love them. So to be clear, you're not the writer of Severance, but your executive producer and have directed quite a lot of the episodes. But you have been the driver of it, it feels like. You were supposed to star in it, and you said you prefer to either direct or act, but not both. So what attracted you to It and the

Writer, Dan Erickson? Well, honestly, you know, the script came into our production company and it was a spec script, a script sent to see a writing sample. And Jackie Kona worked at our company at the time, read it, and she gave it to me and I read it. And I was like, this is great. It's a great writing sample. And also, is anybody doing this show?

It was so unique. The tone, the dialogue, it reminded me of shows that I'd seen before, but it felt like its own thing. I was one of the ideas bandied about to be in it, but really the second I read it, I was like, this is Adam Scott. And I felt just a desire to make it. And sometimes it's hard to actually analyze what it is that draws you to something, because sometimes I think it's something subconscious you don't necessarily know,

but you have a feeling for it. And I've tried to listen to that over the years in terms of just, you know, kind of going with my gut feeling about something and not even knowing what it is. I just thought it was good. I thought I wanted to see it. I thought I could see it in my head and wanted to, you know, wanted to make it happen. So that was it. What was the thing about it? Because if it reminded you, by the way, you are the voice of Keir Egan, right?

I am the voice of Keir Egan in the, I guess it's episode eight. The weird video. Yeah, when you hit 100% and you get like the little video of Keir on the mountaintop. So it's not actually, it's an actor playing Keir because we actually have the voice of the real Keir Egan that Mark Geller portrays when you see and he's who Keir Egan is when you see him. I mean, I think it was the mix of humor and weirdness and the basic and the tone of the humor which related to me to a lot of comedies that I loved, the

office banter, this feeling of sort of like this weird sort of like movie office space or Parks and Rec or the office, you know, that sort of genre of office workplace comedy. Yeah. Where it's like a lot of the humor is based in sort of everyday stuff. But then there was this other layer to it, which is these people don't know who they are, where they are, what they're doing, why they're doing it. Right.

I mean, it's sort of like you put Mary Tyler Moore in an absurdist Sartre play or something. A little bit of a no exit, I guess. It's also, a lot of friends of mine, they're like, oh, I don't want to watch it. It's too scary. It's a thriller. I'm like, no, it's a comedy. But it's also sci-fi, it's romantic, it's dystopian, it's absurd.

You've called it a workplace comedy. Is there, there's also- I feel like it's, yeah, I feel like it's rooted in the workplace comedy genre, and then it also has these aspects of, you know, thriller, but also like 70s sort of, you know, style thrillers, and then also the weird kind of Twilight Zone vibe to it also. And I mean, to me, that was what was exciting,

was that it's a combination of all these different things. And when you see something like that where you haven't seen it before, but in some way it triggers, you know, these ideas for you, it makes you want to lean into it. And so, Dan had never had anything produced before, ever before. And so, I had obviously worked for a long time. So, I, you know, he and I sort of partnered up, and it's always been his vision. But I think we really collaborated a lot in terms of the, you know, just the feeling and the vibe of it and the direction of the story as we looked at,

you know, building it out from this pilot that he'd written. Mm-hmm. It also has a, I know it's, I don't know how old this guy is, but do you remember the, one of the last Planet of the Apes, like beyond the, not beyond, when they're sort of in Century City, a Planet of the Apes. Yeah, that might be battle or conquest. Battle, conquest.

I do remember that. I don't know, one of the, it had that really cheap feel, but also, you know what I mean, in those weird places. Well, these are formative movies for me, the Planet of the Apes movies. I went to the Los 84th Street Cinema and watched the Planet of the Apes marathon where they go from Planet of the Apes all the way through Conquest or whatever. So yeah, that's deeply rooted in my DNA of just things that I love to watch. Or Omega Man.

It had a little Omega Man. Omega Man for sure. Yeah, with Charles Charlton Heston. Yeah, a little bit of Logan's Run-ish. Logan's Run-ish. But there's also a sense in the moment right now that big tech controls us, but this is about big corporations controlling us,

which is not an uncommon trope. There's been a million movies of that. In this case, it's with cooperation, though not full disclosure, which is what tech is like right now in a lot of ways. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, technically Lumen is sort of a med tech company, you know, and

they go back to the 1860s and 70s when Keurigen founded it. And, you know, it kind of is really, you know, one of those companies that does a lot of things and you shouldn't quite know everything that they do. And obviously the severed workers have no idea what they do there. And I always think that's interesting when you see the characters having to talk, especially for Mark in the first season when he just talks about, you know, supposedly I'm a corporate archivist or something. He doesn't have any idea what he's up to. And I think that idea of people who are working for giant corporations with the tech or whatever,

who actually knows what they're really working towards. I don't know about that world that much, but it seems to me. Well, it's a maximization of what is work even for, right? What's the idea of what work's even for when you're just a cog in a larger picture of it? Yeah, and I think that goes just back to human nature. It's like we all want to work. We all want to have something to do with our lives. And then there are certain people who have ideas

of doing things that are, you know, who knows what they want to do. I mean, you could pick any tech billionaire, you know, what are their goals and their aims? And ultimately we're all just people who want to work and be happy and fill our time with something that we think is meaningful. And it can be really distressing when you're doing that

in something you think is good or meaningful to you, but then the overall goal of this corporation you're working for might be totally nefarious. Yeah, the goal of the billionaires, tech billionaires is fascism, as it turned out. And greed, right? It's all about greed. Well, power. No? Power. Power is where it is. Or they know better, and they will tell us what to do. And that's what this Corp. Lumen is like that too. We know, we care, but then they don't actually care in any way. So there's a lot about the unconscious as a model of knowing separating you from doing severed but not entirely severed since a lot of it creeps into the consciousness

like the happiness he has in one world and deep unhappiness in the others and the idea that it would seep into it. What does that mean to have two senses of knowing? How does it impact directing the actors? Because the actors obviously have to be two different people when you're doing it. Yeah. I mean, to me, again, it's one of the really interesting aspects of the premise of the show is how much of a person can be cut off from,

I guess, if it's your brain, if it's your mind, there are technologies that are approaching trying to do something like this. But what is it that can cross over if you don't remember anything about your life? What are the innate human desires or characteristics that make you a person? And so that's constantly what we're looking at and asking in the show.

And for the actors, it's great because that's a question they can ask in literally every scene. They can wonder about, well, how much of this is coming through? My feeling for Dylan and Irving, if they're having a conversation, how much of Dylan's Audi life is coming through for Dylan, even if it's not what the scene is about? Or for Adam Scott playing Mark, he's constantly going back and forth between that. And I think that's, to me,

what's really interesting about the show too, is finding those places where something transcends the severance barrier, an emotion or a feeling. There's a time in episode, I think it's like, I forget which episode,, it's season one where Dylan says basically, you know, do you think this love transcend the severance barrier? And you know, that's the question, you know, what transcends and what, when we suppress feelings, how much can you, you know, really keep out of really keep out of what your experience?

I mean, it goes to the questions of post-traumatic stress disorder, suppressed memories, repressed memories, all those things. Years ago, I had a friend who was in one of those psychiatric things where they did therapy every day for hours and hours and was trying to find out all about themselves and figuring out where suppressed memories was. And they said, have you ever been to therapy? I said, never. I just, I don't want to know that much about myself.

Like something like that. I sent them off hand, which is probably rude to someone who's in intense therapy. And they said to me, they were a pretty unhappy person, I would say. And they said to me, you're blocking. And I said, it's working because I'm happy and you're not, which was kind of an interesting moment. And I thought about it watching this, I thought it'd be really interesting to watch this if you're a therapist of some sort too, like how do you look at this, because everything's

about the conscious and unconscious and what bleeds into each other. I mean, as a person, I've been in therapy in my life and I've talked a lot. And that question of how much talking about your past or talking about memories and issues, there's questions about that, how much that really can help, right? And alternate therapies that are much more in the body and actually not really just about analyzing. And I think that to me resonates because I feel like a lot of this stuff is internal and there's even questions about generational trauma that people talk about now. And it's really interesting because you think about what is cellularly in our bodies

that we carry with us. Yeah, well, except in this case, they use an advanced piece of technology to create this ever, right? To create the suppressing of the unconscious or the conscious. But even though it's an advanced technology that's happening here, it seems like everyone in the show is living in the 70s, as you talked about. It's a retro set, the costumes feel older on all of them really. Talk a little bit about that, why you wanted the look and feel.

There's also a lot of doubling and duality, which was there's people walking together in twos, or it's a theme of two characters playing two different people. Talk a little bit about that, the look and feel of why you had the retro set and also the duality that's happening visually. Yeah, well, in terms of the Audi world and the Indy world too, what I thought that Dan had written in the pilot was a very sort of generic kind of world. And I think he was commenting

on that, I think, in a way, in terms of what working for a big corporation can kind of turn you into. And that sort of blandness, that corporate blandness, I felt we should mirror in the outside world. And I didn't want to have any actual reference points like, you know, like CNN or, you know, brand names or things, you know things when you saw the news. Just, you know, and that was sort of the idea was like, we don't quite know where or when this is.

It's kind of now, but we don't wanna have any sort of touchstones or, and even in the technology, and look, I grew up in the 70s, and I do feel like ever since cell phones and smartphones were invented, it's really changed our lives, obviously, but also storytelling because so many things you'd have to do before that you'd tell a story, you'd have to go and do research or whatever and you just get on your phone. It's not very cinematic.

And that's why I like a prison story too. inside of a prison, you don't have access to that technology, prisoners aren't allowed. So, and in a way, severance is a little bit of a, it has a prison aspect to it. Yeah, it's got the Stanford prison experiment, that vibe to it. Yeah, and I think, you know, that world should be as kind of interesting and off and generic in its own way

as the any world, the Audi world. And so that's kind of why we sort of gravitated towards that. And so the duality aspect though is just inherent in the theme. So just that's a natural sort of, you know, tendency for us then to look for in the imagery that because it just it's just telling the story in a way and it lends itself to that. So, you know, I think that's part of just the sort of visual world of the show. And I think when you have a clear theme and you have an idea that's really specific, you know, you want to stick with that theme and let that everything build off of that. So it feels organic and not forced hopefully.

And that's what I think the great thing about this idea is that it allows for that. Yeah, I went back and looked at the movements and it's all duality. It's really interesting. But it also has a level of suspense since there is what the viewer knows and what two different people know and then the pervasive sense of withholding information in a total surveillance environment, right? There's a lot of misinformation happening here in this environment, largely by the Lumen executives who are not severed, by the way, who know both sides. Right. And we are constantly, you know,

dealing with that question all the time, the question of how much Lumen knows, how much they're listening to, how much they're seeing, you know, within the severed world. I think there's always a question of how much they're letting happen, how much they know is happening, how sometimes the technology isn't quite great there. There's like, you know, there are places they can find like, you know, like a closet or something like that. And you know, that's like a specific aspect of the reality of the show that, you know that maybe if we were doing this as a modern day show, everybody would be like,

oh wait, well, there's no way you could do that because they would have microphones everywhere. But I think there's something to the sort of clunky nature of this corporation too, that is kind of fun. And we don't have any, there's one security person in the first season, Grainer, but early on we had experimented and thought about having security guards on the floor.

And anytime we ever brought security guards in, it always felt to me like it turned into like a Star Trek episode or something. It just, there was something about it. And we realized, oh, well, like the more we don't tell, the more we don't show, the more we don't show, the more the audience has a chance to fill it in themselves. And that's always been for me a little bit of the question

as I put the show out into the world. When we were making it from the first season, we'd made all nine episodes and nobody had seen it. It's like, oh, I hope people will buy this conceit because you have to buy into it. But it's there because I feel like those aren't the questions as much that I'm as interested in as opposed to the sort of greater themes of the show.

Right, absolutely. I mean, it's also a return to work story, which is kind of in the news right now, this idea of return to work. Did you did you understand that at the time that you had a COVID period in here when you were making it. Yeah, not at all. I mean, yeah, the first season we made starting right when COVID started, and we were delayed actually six months in production because of it.

And so when the show was finished and people were starting to go back to work and some writer wrote about it as like, oh, this is like one of the first return to work shows. It was purely, you know, that's just happenstance. So it was just, I think the timing of how, you know, the show came out and it seemed like the, both the aspect of being sort of severed

from everybody else in the world, you know, as we were. And that weirdness, even making the show where the actors were, you know, as we were. And that weirdness, even making the show where the actors were, you know, we were first season, everybody was in full PPE and, you know, face masks. I don't remember any of that. I don't remember. Blocking is working.

Someone's like, do you remember that? I'm like, I don't. Do you know that Trump was president before you knew that? I don't remember that. It's not going very well right now. We'll get to that in a minute. But no, blocking, it's working. I want to get into the business of this in a second,

but do you have a character you particularly vibe with on the show? I mean, I really enjoy all the characters equally. I like them. Adam is the key, I think, because he's the protagonist, but. Milchik, that guy. Milchik, yeah. Excuse me, Milchik. Well, Milchik is, yeah.

I mean, I'm excited for this season with Milchik, too, just because I feel like he's an enigma and he can be scary, but there's so many different aspects to who he is that make him a really fascinating character. And everybody works for this corporation. So at the end of the day, there's a chain of command. And I think that's something that's interesting to us in the show is sort of like how even if it's this weird kind of world or these maybe possibly scary characters that work at the company, they're also working. And so they have to deal with all of the office politics too. The defiant jazz scene was my favorite in the entire, when they were dancing.

So awkward. I've been at that party. I've been at that office party where they have cake in the office. They do pineapples here. Yeah, the pineapple fruit plate as a way of luring people back. You know, it's sort of like, you know, the shitty little, you know, perks that you get. Yeah. That, you know, in contrast to what these people have experienced, that's huge for them.

I mean, though they are trying it in season two on the outings, but it's funny to me that when they have an office party, it's still just them. There's nobody else there. So it's just like the lights change, but it's still the same four people who are mingling with each other. So that was one of my favorite sort of setups that we had with the idea of like, well, okay, where is this going to go? And all of a sudden, when you get this next level perk, it's they're going to change the color of

the lights in the room and you're going to dance. The combination of Milchik is like, he's obviously the best dancer there. Such a good dancer. An amazing dancer, Tramell Tillman. Adam, the best white guy dancing, I think I've ever seen. Quite good. He didn't do his, you know, biting his lip enough.

The white man overbite, yeah. Little bit. To save that Billy Crystal, right? Yeah. Yeah, it was, to me, the weirdness of that moment is kind of like, well, that's what's in the show, it's motivated because it's a party, it's a perk, you understand why they're doing it, but it's also just so weird, and it's really fun to be able to explore that.

We'll be back in a minute. Okay, business leaders, are you playing defense or are you on the offense? Are you just, excuse me. Hey, I'm trying to talk business here. As I was saying, are you here just to play or are you playing to win? If you're in it to win, meet your next MVP, NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is your full business management system in one suite. With NetSuite, you're running your accounting, your financials, HR, e-commerce, and more,

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at indeed.com slash Vox CA. Just go to indeed.com slash Vox CA right now and support this show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Vox CA. Turns and conditions apply. Hiring indeed is all you need. So I want to talk a little bit about the business. Have you been surprised how popular it's gotten? I know Succession got more popular in the second season, right?

And Severance was Apple's first new series order after the company launched its streaming service. And it was trying to do an HBO thing. That was very clear. A place for big talent to come and make what they want with big budgets. Now Severance is reportedly costing a lot of money, and there have been cuts at Apple pulling the budget as the second season was being produced all across the way. But at the same time, Parrot Analytics was noting that you might be generating $200 million

for Apple in terms of subscriptions and everything else. And at the same time, they're about to maybe announce your third season. Talk a little bit about the calculations here of how you look at it, because it used to be so much easier. Now you made mostly movies over TV shows, but talk a little bit about the calculations, because it's a weird economic environment

and at the same time. Honestly, yeah, I know very little about it. It's a weird world to be in. From the beginning, it was a new, strange experience because when we started developing the show, Apple wasn't even up yet. And someone called up and said, yeah, Apple's going to do a streaming service too. And I remember laughing going, okay, everybody's doing streaming services. This is crazy. And we went out and pitched the show to different HBO, all these places, and Apple was the only one that bought it.

And they weren't even up yet. So what did the others say about it? Well, you know, no one ever really tells you it's Hollywood. Yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah. They say we loved it, just wasn't for us. Yeah. But that's just the way it is.

And that's par for the course. But they said yes to it, and then it was like, okay, we're gonna develop this thing for Apple TV. That's weird to think of. And then a couple years go by, and then all of a sudden they're up and running, and we're a show that's in production for them. And so, honestly, I had no sense of what success would be,

other than I hope people watch it. And you know, they don't really tell you the analytics. Oh, they don't. No, they don't ever tell you the analytics. No, they show us graphs and charts, but without numbers attached to them. And it's weird. I think that's weird for any creative person, especially when you're used to, you make a movie, you know exactly how many people went to see it on opening night, how much money it made, a show, you know exactly how many people went to see it on opening night, how much money it made,

a show, you get Nielsen ratings. So in a way it took the pressure off of us because there wasn't some number we were waiting to hear. All we wanted to hear was like, yeah, we're happy. A lot of people are watching it and you want people to watch the show. But the first season, we were lucky enough to get very positive critical response,

which hardly ever happens in my life. You know, we were lucky enough to get very positive, you know, critical response, which hardly ever happens in my life. And it was, I was so happy about that. And it seemed like people were watching it, but I didn't know how many people. And then we went into our process of making the second season, which got hit by the strike. And, you know, it took a long much longer than we wanted. So coming back after three years in this culture is, you know, it's like a hundred years in terms of just any guarantee that people are still going to be there.

But in the meantime, Apple had grown, they'd built out their subscriber base. And I think they also really get the show, have always gotten the show. I thought they did a great job of marketing it the first season in terms of just like the aesthetic of it with the show and Apple. And it always felt like a good- Well, it looks like Apple headquarters, but go ahead. Yeah, it does. And it wasn't, that wasn't intentional.

I've never been to Apple headquarters, you know, seen like aerial shots, but like really we designed it, but it always felt like it's, you know, yeah, this fits on Apple. And then the second season, they really put a lot behind it. I think they believed in it and they, you know, had money invested in it too. And luckily, our fan base, our core fan base really was still there for it. And I felt like it could go either way.

It could go, you know, it's three years and we waited for this, you know, no thanks. Or like nobody cares, it's back. Or it could be, you know, hey, it was worth the wait. And that's totally out of your control when you're making something. So you just put your head down and do it. So you don't know, I mean, I'm just, this parrot analytics is pretty accurate.

$200 million for Apple in terms of, you don't know. Yes, I saw that article, but that's all, yeah. Yeah, does that change your, you know, going to Apple saying, I want more money? No, I know, because honestly, I feel like they've been great. I have no complaints. It's like they've gotten behind the show. They, I, you know, and they, these things are so complicated. I think I was really happy to see that article because I didn't know, but I also feel like they've always been like, yeah, we love the show, we're behind it. And

you know, it's yeah, it's never been like a thing. Did you have any problems working for a tech company? You mean like in terms of just my own sort of moral? Yeah, versus a Hollywood. Yeah. And you know, this is I just, this is a whole new change with these tech companies, sort of Amazon and Apple. For me, just the concern that not knowing what Apple TV Plus would be, like whether or not they were how serious

they were about it, whether or not we would be looked at as, you know, a real show early on, you know, in that way. I think like, and you know, that's's also the not knowing what they had really planned for and what they were trying to do other than them saying they wanted to make really good shows. Right, which they have. But you do hear, of course, there is like, well, ultimately it's a phone company. They're making phones.

Yeah. Yeah. The creator of Transparent called me once and I said, you're selling toilet paper, that's what you're doing. Yeah, and look, for a creative person who grew up in my generation, it's weird to see. It's weird to see that Amazon Prime is on there like when you're shopping for Amazon stuff and you can just click on that and watch movies and shows. It takes away something of the specialness of movies when you look at it that way.

And then there's the other aspect of what's informing their decisions based on their analytics and the level of information that they're getting that will create for them ideas of what they think they want to produce for their platform. Yeah. So, what are the chances of a third season? You did get Tim Cook in an ad. That was a good sign. Yeah.

I think there's... He's a big ham, by the way. He pretends he's not a ham. He's a ham. He seemed to like it. Yeah. Yeah. I think the chances are really good. And, yeah, I mean, for us, we just want to be able to tell the story in the number of seasons that it should be to finish the story. And that's what's great. I mean, that's the upside of working in this era is that we're not a show that has to keep going because it's a network hit show that they're saying we need 22 episodes

and you gotta keep doing until the ratings drop. That pressure is not there. And that, I think, is something that gets lost a little bit in all the sort of weird negatives of this world too, is that you have that creative freedom. So, at the same time, there's the Netflix phenomenon, right? They regularly beat all the other streamers, more top 10 shows combined than all of them, despite the quality and reviews that Apple gets.

They'll pop up anything Netflix, like really, pretty much. Now, you guys have been doing a bunch of marketing. You had the season two pop up in Grand Central Station that was hysterical where you put them in a glass box and had people, had them do their work in the glass box, which was great. For three hours they were there. For three hours, and you were outside,

people were shooting pictures of you at the same time. How do you, does everything now go around Netflix in that regard, or is streaming starting to settle, I guess, but maybe not? I don't know in terms of how it's all settling out. It's just I know it's a crazy new world. I know Netflix has changed everything. The amount of shows that they produce,

movies that they make, the level of what they're putting in and spending. It's just changed everything. So everybody who makes stuff, you want your stuff to be seen. And so it's that sort of push-pull where if you have something on Netflix, you know that you have a chance for more people in the world to see it than probably ever. But it also could be just go down the queue very quickly and never even get any attention.

And that's a real thing too. You're scared of the queue? The queue? Yeah, sure. But who wouldn't be feeling like, oh, I don't want to just go down? But it's just such a crazy world now that the cultural moment that you have for something, I actually like being on Apple

because they don't drop everything at once. We get to have an episode every week. And I think for our show, that benefits our show. It does. Because we get a chance for people to chew on it and to think about it and to talk about it and to go online and go back and forth. Want it and to want it.

Yeah, and to want it. And I like that. And maybe that's just a generational thing. I'm just an old guy who's like, oh, I remember when shows would come on every week. It is succession was like that, right? And you'd look forward to that. And I think it's just the new world we're in. But yeah, Netflix has turned the movie business upside down

and is still trying to find its way, I think, in terms of what defines a movie. You know, I'm hoping, and I really do believe we're going to get back to what people went to the movies for besides spectacle and giant IP and all that stuff and You know, I feel like that will come back around. Well, you've made both types of movies, right? Sure

yeah, but you know back in the day a little bit and I haven't done it for a while and you know in movies and It's hard to you know The thing is like the movies had that version of it where you have an opening weekend And if your movie didn't do well on the opening weekend of wide release, then it would go away pretty quickly. So it's kind of the same version of like being on the queue at Netflix. It's just a kind of, you know, on steroids or something, you know. Even more existential. In that vein, there's a question not from me.

Every episode we ask an outside person to record a question. Here's yours. Hi, Ben. My name is Lucas Shaw and I'm the managing editor for media and entertainment at Bloomberg News. My big question is, following strikes and the broader pullback on spending in Hollywood, many executives, producers, and creative people say this is the worst time to work in Hollywood in their lives. What's another moment in your career where your peers had so much existential dread? Thanks.

Oh, wow. That's presuming so much existential dread? Thanks. Oh, wow. That's presuming you have existential dread. I mean, existential dread is sort of something that creative people have all the time. And that I think could be generational trauma that I have too. I mean, I grew up around that too. It's not a very secure business being an actor or a creative person. I can't remember a time when people were as off balance as they are now. Everything has changed in such a big way. I'm trying to think of, you know, like when VHS happened or something like that or, you know, things like that. But it's just all

been sort of thrown out there in a way that we don't know. I don't think the people who are making things know where it's going to land either. So they're trying to figure it out and then there's a lot of fear because those people want to keep their jobs, which I understand, but they have to make these choices based on what they think the audiences are doing. And so, yeah, I can't remember a time like this. What didn't feel so, you had noted it in the New York Times interview though that when a decision is made, it's never explained to the creative person or usually if it is, it's

not usually the truth, et cetera. Well, that's, yeah, that's just sort of, you know. That's old school. Yeah, it's never explained to the creative person, or usually if it is, it's not usually the truth, et cetera. Well, yeah, that's just sort of, you know. That's old school. Yeah, that's old school. Yeah, it is. And, you know, it really is, you know, people don't ever say, I don't know of in any business, because I've only done this, but like what people tell you when they reject an idea or something, if they always tell you the actual, their honest, you know, reason why they're

doing it. But I think, you I think in this business, people want to keep their relationships with each other and they want to stay connected because they don't know what the next thing is going to be. That's just always been a part of Hollywood. But I do think you're right. The bosses don't know what's going to happen. That's the problem is they really don't know. Going back to Existential Jed,

coming up with the guardrails for use of AI in filmmaking are important points of negotiation. The actors and writers strikes, we've talked about this. There was some recent controversy with the Oscar-nominated film The Brutalist. They use AI to correct the Hungarian accents of its lead actors. Do you think about AI's potential impact on the industry? Are you thrilled by it? Is there a line in your head that shouldn't be crossed when applying? I suspect you might lean into it. I don't know why I think that, maybe.

I think it's so unknown. It's scary to think about like what people could do with it, the potential, what is actually possible to do. I do believe that creative human beings are always going to be what people want to connect with and see their stuff. There are little places where AI, I mean, I feel like almost what's going on with CGI really is, in terms of visual effects, is basically into that world anyway at this point. Yes, that's correct. Using those tools.

I mean, there are little ways that if I feel like, oh, you know, to be honest, I'd say like, oh, you're doing ADR, which is when you're like doing looping extra lines or something, and an actor is not available. If the actor said, hey, it's okay, you know, you can use my voice and we can get the, you know, those words that you need to put in because I'm not available to do because I'm doing another movie, something like that. Those are kind of mundane practical things that I think would be really helpful.

And I don't know, I mean, I think I love The Brutalist. I don't in any way look at that as making that movie lesser in any way at all, honestly. I also am very impressed with that movie as a lot of people are because because the price it was made for. But the unfortunate thing is that a movie like that has to be made for such a low price. Low price, yeah.

It's hard because I know how much creative people will really stretch themselves to do what they wanna do creatively. And it's really hard to get the opportunity to make a movie that's not something that everybody in the world is going to want to see, but yet those are the movies that we celebrate with awards and move us. So, you know, that's what I feel for are the

creative people who are forced to have to really sacrifice a lot so that they can get something made. And now whether AI could in some way help that, I don't think that's a bad thing. But where the rules are around it, I mean, the idea of somebody taking your image and then being able to do whatever they want with it, it's very concerning to me when I see what it could be done. Well, they take your image a lot. Zoolander, all your different parts.

I've often seen... That also happened. That's always happening, that your different parts. I've often seen. That also happened. That's always happening, that kind of thing. I think ever since the internet. But I do think it's concerning when you see in the political world how political ads can be created and people doing things that they didn't do. That's really scary. We'll be back in a minute.

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one cloud ERP. Right now, get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash Vox. Get this free guide at netsuite.com slash Vox. Okay, guys. So you recently joined me in a not so exclusive club. We've both been called names by Elon Musk. I am seething with hate and an asshole, in case you're interested. I'm not going to repeat what he said about you. You know what he said about you. We're not repeating that word because I'm a good

girl, okay? I don't say that word anymore. I used to when I was a kid. We don't do it anymore. But he seemed upset that you endorsed Kamala Harris. And then after you wondered in an interview whether Tropic Thunder could be made today and I wish there was, as you know, I'm desperate for Tropic Thunder too. He wanted you to be more upset about how Wocas is supposedly ruined comedy. Talk a little bit about this moment. That makes no sense to me. I have no idea what that means. Well, do you think he's on the up and up now these days because he makes so much sense

about everything he does. But you know. I have very little interest in his whole thing and like what he's doing. So tell me why, because he, he was retweeting a Daily Mail headline that read Ben Stiller says woke America killed edgy or comedy. That's not what you said at all. From what I could read. No, not, yeah, that was a total, yeah, that was not at all.

It's the opposite of what I was saying. I don't know why he has so much time on his hands that he's retweeting something that was written about me. I know he really likes Tropic Thunder, great, good for him. But I think he's, you know, after that, you know, the Nazi salute, the double Nazi salute, I'm just, I'm not, yeah, I'm not into it, never was into it. And I think, you know, what's happening, honestly, not that anybody needs my opinion, but what's happening in terms of him being so close to the president and, you know, all the questions that that brings up in terms of conflicts of interest, all of that stuff is really,

really concerning. It is, absolutely. The two of them together. And what he cares about pop culture and all that stuff is like, you know, who gives a shit? He wanted you to agree with him that Tropic Thunder couldn't be made. Isn't that awful? It goes with the narrative of isn't everybody trying to stop us because we're the greatest

victims on Earth. Us rich people are the greatest. I think that's down that lane, something like that. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it makes anybody a victim. I mean, what the temperature is in terms of what movies are getting made or not. The reality is, yeah, sure, the environment is different and it would be tougher to get it made. I don't know if it could get made or not.

I think it would be harder to get it made. But that doesn't mean I'm commenting on the state of our culture. I think it's just- He wanted you to agree with him, I think yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't yeah, but you don't okay But one of the things that people are worried about is a Trump chill in Hollywood now, obviously that's happening in tech Everybody showed up at the at the inauguration all the tech richest people in the world New York magazine recently quoted anonymous producer He said there's more fear in the executive suites now than there's ever been. There seems to be a pulling back.

Disney pulled a trans character, for example. Is there any indication for you that Hollywood executives would be more hesitant to fund projects with political messages? Quite a few of yours have them. Now, besides sports that you endlessly blew sky about, which I don't understand any of your references, you're also very political which I don't understand any of your references. You're also very political. You don't shy away from it.

I believe they're a basketball team in any case. You are a political, but do you think about that at all? Yeah, sure. I think about it. I mean, yeah, I don't know. After when October 7th happened and, you know, this is going to Israel. Yeah, I was trying to think of like, well, what should I say?

And it was really, I realized like, I'm not going to be able to express myself in a tweet or a blue sky post or, you know, it's just, I don't want to go into that arena of like having to sort of like distill some idea down into a thought that then people are going to debate and you know what's going to happen with that. So to me, it's more a question of where do I express myself and what do I do? And I don't think having to legislate all this stuff on your phone all the time, as much as sometimes there's an instinct to, to me that's not something that I'm going to really do well with or it's just not going to make me happy to do that. But I feel like that's why I wrote a little something about October 7th and just put it

out there because I wanted to express myself. I just think it's the social media debate and what it turns into is not, it never really goes well. What about the art itself? Do you think how it will be impacted by the time we're in, if you could look forward? I know I interviewed Rachel Maddow recently and we talked a bit about our podcast about Nixon's corrupt first Vice President, Spear Agnew, called Bag Man. It's being adapted into a feature film you reportedly set to direct.

Do you think about doing, are you directing that? Is that correct? Yeah, I'm trying to get that movie made. We almost got it made a couple of years ago. I think it's more important now. Look, I think artists are incredibly inspired now to speak out in creative ways about what's going on in our country. And my daughter is an actor. She just graduated from drama school. She's a writer and she wants to make movies. And she said, you know, all I want to do right now is make stories about women and what they're going through

because of what's going on in our country right now. So I think people are really inspired and you're going to see a lot of amazing art come out of it. Does it make you want to do more? Because I mean, Angels in America came out of Reagan, right? It came out of that anger. A lot of that art came out of it. Does it make you want to do more? Because I mean, Angels in America came out of Reagan, right? It came out of that anger. A lot of that art came out of this. Yeah, I think you have to be true to who you are in terms of what you create.

But yes, for sure. And I think we all have to kind of look at ourselves and say, okay, what message are we putting out there with whatever it is we make? But even if it's a comedy or drama, whatever it is, it doesn't all have to be political. It has to be true to who you are. And we're all affected by the world that we're in. So it's hopefully gonna be a reflection of the experience that you're having in some way.

I don't put that pressure on people to have to go out and do something. I think you have to be, do what feels right for you. Is there something that inspires you now at this moment? Because I mean, do you get feel more, I don't feel like you're gonna be making Night at the Museum 7 at this point, or whatever we're on, whatever we're on.

Well, I mean, honestly though, I still think it's good to have stuff that you can watch that can make you laugh and give you a little treat. Oh, your heist movie, what's it called, Heist? Oh, Tower Heist? Tower Heist is so good. Do you wanna know, you know what,

we shot that in the Trump Tower. Oh, you did, I Tower Heist was so good. Do you want to know? You know what? We shot that in the Trump Tower. Oh, you did. I know you did. Yeah. And the movie was originally called Trump Tower Heist, but Trump wanted them to pay him for the use of his name, so they changed it to Tower Heist. Oh, wow. Well, that's fantastic.

I don't think anybody ever heard that. Oh, wow. Good to know. Sorry. Yeah, but no. Look, I, like many people after the election who didn't vote for Trump, kind of wanted to just sort of hide for a moment and just not have to deal with the reality. And I think now it's sort of this moment in time where it's like, okay, this is the reality

we're in. It's not the first term. We have to look at it, look at ourselves and do what we feel is right to be who we want to be in this moment. And so I think that should all be what you're expressing, and it should all be part of what you want to say. So yeah, that movie, BADMAN, I'd love to get that movie made right now because I feel like it sort of tells the story of what happens

when people do the right thing in the face of somebody who's trying to go past the bounds of what their power is. Right. And Spear Ragny is quite a character. He's such a fantastic kid. That was a great podcast. I like all of Rachel's podcasts a lot. Me too. So my last question is where we go

is this idea of influences you now, or perhaps before, I know your mother and father, the great Jerry Stiller and Anne Mira, she died in 2015, I think that's right, and he died in 2020. You're working on a documentary about them right now. Can you talk a little bit about this? And I imagine they gave you a lot of advice about

entertainment business and storytelling over the years. Is there anything about their careers from your perspective that endures and what influences you today? Yeah. I mean, they worked together as a comedy team. They got married in 1953 and they weren't making any money as actors, both separately trying to get work. And then my dad came up with this idea of them doing a comedy act together about who they were.

And then we were born, my sister and I, and so grew up around it all. And for me, it was exploring in the movie, this life of living in a household that was constantly part of their creative process because they would work at home and they would write together and they would perform and come home and, you know, be parents and actors and it was all sort of intermingled. And then of course, you know, you grow up and I had got married and had kids and became an actor and my kids want to be actors. And I was looking at, you know, what is it inside of us that the creative process is

and how that connects with relationships that we have in our life when you do this kind of thing. You know, when you go to an office job, you know, you go to the office and you want to maybe sever and not think about it, right? But in a life where you're a creative person, it melds through and it's always part of who you are. So it affected my parents' marriage. They stayed married for 60 plus years, but there was a lot of stress and tension in there.

And I was able to, my dad recorded a lot of stuff, audio recordings, super eight film, and he recorded them rehearsing, and then sometimes the tape recorder would keep going, and they'd get into an argument, or they'd talk about what was going on in their life. So I was able to take those tapes and kind of see something that I hadn't seen in their private life together,

and how they navigated this relationship and their careers together. And when does that, where is that coming out? It's going to be Apple, Apple movies. Yeah. And it's going to come out later this year, I think. So last question, what then influences you today about doing this from them? What did you come away with?

I think I came away with a better understanding of my parents in terms of my dad's creative process in particular, because he was very focused on that. And sometimes it sort of took him away from the family in a way, just kind of in his head a little bit. And I think I inherited that from him. And I think it's kind of made me look at my own relationship with my kids and my wife and have a little more perspective on that and maybe kind of, you know, I don't know, like less angst about that because, you know,

an appreciation of like, okay, we've gotten to this place. Things have not always been perfect, but you know, you keep evolving. And both my parents, I think, were constantly evolving and questioning themselves and looking inward. And I think that's something I got out of it. All right, Ben, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Great talking to you. All right. Bye, Kara. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro Russell, Katera Yocum, Jolie Myers, Megan Burney, Megan Cunane and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's

executive producer of audio. Special thanks to Kate Ferby. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you already found the show, you get a pineapple. If not, you get the dance experience, and you do not want that experience. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.