Ben Stiller Reveals How His Proposal Mirrored ‘Meet the Parents’

Ben Stiller revealed that his real-life father-in-law isn’t much different from the one Robert De Niro played alongside him in Meet The Parents.

On Thursday’s episode of The View, Stiller told the hosts meeting his wife, actress and Zoolander co-star Christine Taylor’s dad was the “exact same experience” as the movie.

“When we were making Meet the Parents, I had just met Christine and I was gonna ask her to marry me,” he explained, but wanted to ask her father for permission first.

“He lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania and he owns a security company, and he’s like a very stern [guy],” Stiller continued, likening Taylor’s father to De Niro’s retired CIA interrogator character. “I was going through the exact same experience in real life” while making the movie, but with one notable exception: “Luckily,” Stiller said, “he was nicer to me.”

Stiller and Taylor have now been married for 25 years, but separated for an extended period starting in 2017.

“In my mind, I never didn’t want us to be together,” Stiller told the New York Times in a recent interview. “I don’t know where Christine was, you’d have to ask her, but COVID put us all together in the same house,” where they were able to talk and work out their issues.

Stiller elaborated about that separation on The View. “I don’t have any great relationship advice,” he said, “I’m so grateful that we’re back together and I think sometimes people shouldn’t get back together. Sometimes it’s not the right thing. For us, it was the right thing.” He concluded, “Now, every day that we’re together, we don’t take it for granted.”