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Fresh Air Weekend: Ben Stiller on his showbiz family; 'Wicked' star Cynthia Erivo

NPR
Published November 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM EST
Ben Stiller (bottom center) describes growing up with comedian parents Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller as "a lot of fun times and more interesting to my sister and I than school, for sure."
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Ben Stiller (bottom center) describes growing up with comedian parents Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller as "a lot of fun times and more interesting to my sister and I than school, for sure."

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, as well as new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and it often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

In Ben Stiller's showbiz family, there was little separation between home and stage: After his parents died, Stiller found a stash of their audio recordings. Those tapes of comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara are at the center of the documentary Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.

"What you see is really me," says Wicked star Cynthia Erivo: Erivo says she found parallels between her life and the experience of her Wicked character, Elphaba. Her new memoir is called Simply More: A Book for Anyone who Has Been Told They're Too Much.

You can listen to the original interviews here:

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