Ben Stiller is opening up about fatherhood and the honest conversations he’s had with his children, Ella and Quin. 

In his upcoming documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, which reflects on his childhood and his parents, comedy legends Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, the actor also turns the focus on his own role as a dad.

In one scene, his son Quin shared how his father’s busy schedule often affected family time. 

“After a tough day, or if something was going wrong, you can kind of get into your own head,” Quin said, according to Us Weekly. 

“And when you get into that place, it’s hard to get you out of it. So that would kind of put a damper on the fun part of being on vacation.”

Quin went on to explain that his dad was constantly juggling multiple roles, “being a director, an actor, a producer, a writer”, and at times, being a father “would come last” among all those responsibilities.

Ella, meanwhile, was even more direct with her dad, telling him, “I literally can’t ever remember you being around when I was growing up.”

Hearing that from his children wasn’t easy for Ben. 

“The irony is I thought I was doing so much better than my parents,” he said in the documentary. 

“I thought I was pulling it off. I was flying home on weekends and finding special places for the kids to play when they would visit the set. But in reality, just hearing them talk about it, for them, it was the same thing I was going through as a kid and I just couldn’t see that at all at the time.”

The Dodgeball star reflected further on this in an interview with The Sunday Times, admitting, “I probably f–ked up more with my kids than my parents did with us. My son tells me that being a dad might not have been at the top of my list.”

He said that while he remembers the unhappy moments from his own childhood, becoming a parent made him realize how “impossible” it is to avoid repeating some of the same mistakes. 

“I feel like I have a really great relationship with my kids,” he explained, “but it’s complicated and has at times been strained. When they were young, I did not get it. I thought, ‘Oh, the kids are young, I can work away and be a good dad earning for the family.’ But the bonds you form with your kids when they’re young are so important.”

Stiller’s relationship with his children also faced challenges after his 2017 separation from wife Christine Taylor. 

The couple, who later reconciled during the pandemic, had to work through how the split affected their family. 

“I feel bad about what us breaking up did to the kids,” he shared, “but it was possibly the best thing to happen to Christine and me.”

He added that the experience changed how they view their relationship. 

“We don’t take it for granted any more,” Stiller said. 

“And if you are happy, you’re going to be a better parent. You have hurdles and try to figure it out, and if you stay, all you can do is acknowledge the past and try to repair. That’s what we have in our family. It’s not perfect—at all. But that’s just life.”