Ben Stiller Visits howard

BEN STILLER WANTS AN OSCAR

Ben Stiller stopped by to promote his new movie, 'Greenberg,' and Howard immediately asked why he was making a 'small' film. Ben explained: "It's not about the money at all. It's about trying to make a good movie...this kind of movie is never gonna be--it's not gonna get released on that many screens." Robin asked if it was his bid for an Oscar, so Ben joked: "That's what the 'Night at the Museum' movies were."

Howard commended Ben for being a successful comedic actor who didn't try and go 'serious' all the time. Ben said he loved to be funny, but now he just had more freedom: "It just becomes a choice you make in the moment...you get to a point where you want to do what's interesting to you. You don't wanna keep doing the same thing."

SASHA KILLED THE 'AVATAR' BIT

Robin asked what happened to the 'Avatar'-spoofing bit he and 'Borat' star Sasha Baron Cohen had planned for the Oscars, so Ben explained: "Sasha didn't do it...you'd have to ask him [why]. I honestly don't know what the process was with him...I know that the producers didn't kill it."

BEN ON HIS DIVA REP...AND AFRICA

Howard read Ben a tabloid story claiming that he was a "terror" and exhibited "vain, obsessive behavior" on the set of 'Meet the Parents,' so Ben joked: "Is it weird to have a full-length mirror by the camera when you shoot?" Ben added that movie sets were a weird workspace where you're doing very private work in a public sphere: "It's sort of a vulnerable place."

Ben told the crew he’d recently visited Uganda on a humanitarian aid mission, leading Howard to joke about Robin's 'fact-finding' mission to Guatemala. Ben laughed: "We found some real good facts there, yeah. I saw a cow being slaughtered." Howard wondered why a man who's generated billions in box office dollars would go to Africa, so Ben explained: "I don't equate the gross of a movie in any way with--first of all, my personal sense of self. Ok? Because it doesn't relate to that."

Ben Stiller visits howard stern !

BEN STILLER COMES OUT SWINGING Ben Stiller stopped by to promote "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," and the crew immediately commented on how skinny he looked. Ben claimed he lost weight for a movie, leading everyone to wonder if his next film was set in a concentration camp. Ben struck back, asking if Howard still lived in the same glass-walled penthouse: "It's the Fortress of Solitude above Manhattan." Howard asked Ben how he felt about the openly-gay Neil Patrick Harris admitting (on this show) to having had sex with his wife (before Ben met her): "I don't know if there was actual...I don't know what to think of it. I don't know if it's a compliment. I don't know if it's a backhanded whatever...I feel like, it's Neil Patrick Harris. The jury was out before he declared [he was gay]." Howard laughed: "Was this before she dated Clay Aiken or after?" SPIELBERG YELLS AT KIDS Ben told the crew he originally had the idea for "Tropic Thunder" almost 20 years ago on the set of Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun." Ben said he pissed Steven off during the filming: "He yelled at me because I said 'Cut!' after I messed up a scene." Ben laughed that Spielberg's tirade was short: "You never yell 'Cut'!" Fortunately for Ben, the pair have since made up - Spielberg's company produced "Tropic Thunder." Howard asked if Robert Downey Jr.'s blackface character in "Tropic Thunder" set off any studio red flags, but Ben claimed it hadn’t: "There was a little question about it, but not as much as you would think." Howard also wondered if working with Tom Cruise was weird, but Ben laughed it off, saying Tom was actually a nice guy. Jimmy agreed, describing a pleasant Sunday he spent watching football with Tom - despite the embarrassing/drunken antics of Adam Carolla.