Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor revealed that they were each other’s “rebounds” when they first started dating prior to getting married in the early ‘00s.
During a recent episode of Taylor’s and David Lascher’s podcast Hey Dude…The 90s Called!, the pair recalled how they met in 1999 while working on the pilot of Heat Vision and Jack, which never aired.
Stiller noted that once filming for the show was over, he went to New York to work on a movie and invited Taylor with no expectation of a serious relationship happening between them.
“We were both each other’s, I would say, rebound relationship at the time,” Taylor explained, before her husband added: “We weren’t taking it seriously.”
The Wedding Singer star then reflected on how she got closer to Stiller after she agreed to go to New York.
“We were having fun,” she said. “And you got to New York…and you called me a couple days later and you said, ‘Wanna come to New York and hangout?’ And I ended up going and staying the entire summer.”
Stiller chimed in to note how “great” it was as Taylor “had all these cool friends”. He then opened up about their engagement and how he proposed to Taylor while he was filming the 2000’s Meet the Parents.
His now-wife noted how the proposal was a bit of a full circle moment, since the movie followed Stiller’s character trying to get the approval of his girlfriend’s parents before proposing.
“That was sort of the life imitating art moment, it was really, you were sort of planning a proposal to me while you were shooting, unbeknownst to me, while you were shooting Meet the Parents,” she said. “And you wanted to find a time to ask my dad, and tell my dad about it.”
The Zoolander star agreed with the statement and noted that he “did” find a time to talk to Taylor’s dad about proposing, which ended up being during her “grandfather’s funeral”.
The actors officialy tied the knot in 2000 and went on to have two children: Ella, 20, and Quinlin, 17.
While the couple announced that they were separating in 2017, Stiller revealed in Februrary 2022 that they had gotten back together. During an interview with Esquire at the time, he said that they reconciled after moving back in together with their children at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Then, over the course of time, it evolved,” he said. “We were separated and got back together and we’re happy about that. It’s been really wonderful for all of us. Unexpected, and one of the things that came out of the pandemic.”
During an interview with Parade back in 2016, Stiller also explained how he and Taylor “were both on the rebound” when they got together, before they “jumped” and “got married pretty quickly”.
“I was single. I’d come out of a long relationship with [actress] Jeanne Tripplehorn,” he said. “Christine was coming out of a relationship too. We went on a date and it clicked.”
He also gave more details about how they first met during Taylor’s audition for Heat Vision and Jack, adding: “My wife came in to audition for the role of the sexy sheriff. She had been in the Brady Bunch movies and they were pushing her on me. She came in and she was great.”
