Ben Stiller Says Cutting Daughter From Movie ‘Damaged’ Their Relationship

Ben Stiller isn’t afraid to acknowledge his flaws in the parenting department while navigating a bustling Hollywood career.

Stiller, 59, once again reflected on cutting his daughter, Ella, 23, out of 2013’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty during a sit-down on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday, October 22.

“What a huge mistake,” Stiller admitted of the editing decision. “She was 8, Howard. She was 8.”

Stiller said the difficult decision drew a wedge between him and his daughter for quite some time. (The Zoolander actor shares Ella and son Quin, 20, with wife Christine Taylor.)

“It just damaged our relationship for so many years,” he explained. “It was a good lesson for me. First of all, if you’re going to put your kid in something … put them in a scene you’re never going to cut no matter what.”

Stiller first opened up about the choice to cut Ella out of the adventure comedy movie in his new documentary, Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.

“I cut you out of Secret Life of Walter Mitty. And it was probably the worst decision I’ve ever made in my life,” he told Ella in the doc. “You were so cute.”

Ella no longer harbors any hard feelings toward her dad, insisting that she was “really scared” of acting when she was younger and felt the role “didn’t make sense in the movie.”

In fact, she has since shared the screen with Ben in 2014’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and more recently, Happy Gilmore 2. Ella also looked confident on screen when she joined the third and final season of And Just Like That this year. She played Mia, a hairstylist who gets pregnant by Brady Hobbes (Niall Cunningham).

But looking back on cutting his daughter out of Walter Mitty has definitely caused Ben to go through periods of self-reflection, making him realize in hindsight what’s truly important.

“For me it goes deeper. What it relates to is my own issues and my own obsession with my work or quote on quote perfectionism,” Ben continued of the decision.

Quin also offered his perspective on his dad’s busy schedule and dedication to his work, admitting it largely impacted quality family time.

“I think there’s things, you know, after a tough day or something was going wrong, you can get very much in your own head,” he said. “And I think, once you kind of go into that place … [it’s] hard to get you out of it. So that would, kind of, put a damper on the fun part about being on vacation.”

Quin added, “You have all these hats that you’re trying to balance, you know? Being a director, an actor, a producer, a writer, but also just a father, right? And sometimes I felt that that would come last to these other things.”

Stiller addressed his son’s candid comments during a Q&A at the documentary’s New York Film Festival premiere on October 5, saying, “As a filmmaker, I’m like, ‘Oh this is a good moment for the movie,’ you know. As a person I’m like, ‘That sucks.’”