-It's so great to see you.
-Great to see you!
-Thanks for being here in person.
-This is exciting. I haven't done a talk show
in person for years, literally years.
-It's been years. -Yeah, so, it's great.
It's interesting, we're playing the True Confessions game
and then we're telling lies and all this stuff
and I just happened to mention that you once fought
Boom Boom Mancini in the ring and --
-I didn't fight him. -Well...
-We sparred for a second. -That counts, dude. [ Laughter ]
We went to commercial and Questlove goes,
"C'mere for a second." He goes, "Did he fight?
Did you just say he fought Boom Boom? Back up, wait."
[ Laughter ] Explain. This is real?
-There was this gym in Santa Monica
that a friend of mine had and it was actually --
I don't know if I'm allowed to say
it was owned by Bob Dylan -Yeah, you can say.
-and it was underneath a synagogue.
[ Laughter ] -So, Bob Dylan --
No, this is a true story. -It was a boxing gym
underneath a synagogue and a lot of actors went there.
David Duchovny went there and Pete Berg
and Garry Shandling. -Garry Shandling.
-And --
-[ Laughs ]
Who was like a really good boxer, by the way.
-Did you ever see like anyone fight Bob Dylan?
[ Laughter ] -I think I feel like Garry got in the ring with Dylan.
-Garry Shandling fought Bob Dylan?
[ Laughter ] -I think he did.
-This should've been the story.
-No, this is a movie.
-It's insane. Yeah, it's crazy.
It was a great place. -So, did you go in thinking
that you would fight Bob Dylan? -No, no, no, no.
[ Laughter ] I went in being afraid
that I'd run into Bob Dylan. -Yeah. Just nervous? [ Laughter ]
-Yeah, it's Bob Dylan.
I passed him in the hall once and I just sort of
kept my head down. -Yeah, of course.
And then you get in the ring. -Yeah, get in the ring.
-You're hoping to fight a comedian, maybe.
-Yeah. Right, right, exactly.
And Boom Boom Mancini was there.
[ Laughter ] And he goes, "Man, come on, get up in the ring,"
and so we like went a little bit
and, you know, he was really very nice
and he didn't give me any head shots.
Because, you know, I'm not a boxer, you know.
I do it to like work out. -Of course.
-But, you know, the second you get like
a little tap in the nose,
I just like, want to cry and go to my mommy, go home.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah, exactly.
You go, "No, I'm a comedian. Please, I don't do this.
I'm just doing this for fun, a workout."
-Yeah, but it was -- Yeah, it was an amazing --
I mean, an amazing place.
-I see you go to the Knick game.
I see you at the Knick games. -Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-Did you like the Olympics?
-I do. You know, I do like the Olympics.
I have a little bit of a, you know,
I resist the Olympics every time they come around a little bit
just because it's so much. It's such a big deal.
And I think, when they started to change the schedule,
you know, it used to be every four years
back in like the '70s and the '80s, it was every four
and then, at some point, it became every two years.
Like they were -- they started to --
and then it got me confused
because it felt like the Olympics --
-Like a "Real Housewives" or something.
You go, "One ends, another begins."
[ Laughter ] -It was always either the Olympics were about to begin
or about to end and it took me 10 years to figure out
that they were every two years. -Yeah.
-And then, yeah, and then it just sort of like,
it's always like so like, I feel like
I'm going to just live my life.
I'm not going to get into this
because I got too much going on.
[ Laughter ] And then, of course, it's just ubiquitous
and, you know, inevitably, I get pulled in
because I'm like sitting in bed at 11:30 at night
and, you know, all of a sudden, I'm there
and, you know, in 15 minutes,
I'm just like obsessed with men's slopestyle snowboard.
[ Laughter ] And I have this deep institutional knowledge
and I'm emotionally involved.
-You have no idea what you're talking about. -Yes.
And my my wife will come in and say like, "What's going on?"
I'm like, "Oh, my God!
Red Gerard just nailed his 1620 switch backside."
[ Laughter and applause ]
-Red Gerard! -Yeah.
-Yes! -And then, the judge --
[ Applause ]
And then the judge --
McMorris does it again, he does the same trick,
and the judge gives McMorris a higher score!
[ Laughter ] When is the IOC going to clamp down
on International Ski Federation and police the judging protocol
so we can have fair and balanced judging?
-That's exactly what I'm --
[ Laughter and applause ]
-You know what I'm saying? -Finally!
-But, 20 minutes earlier,
I didn't know what Red Gerard was.
[ Laughter ]
It could've been a Ben & Jerry's like flavor or something.
And now I'm ready to go to the International Olympic Committee
and fight for him. -Fight for Red Gerard.
-Yes. I got really deeply into women's monobob.
-I didn't know that was a thing until after the Super Bowl.
They're like, "And we're back with women's monobob."
I go, I don't even know -- -It's like a single bobsled
and two incredible stories. We double medaled.
The U.S. double medaled. We had the silver and the gold.
Incredible stories. One, the silver medalist,
I think, Elana Meyers Taylor? -My gosh, I feel like your wife.
I feel like your wife right now. Oh, my God.
[ Laughter ] -But she has an incredible story because she got COVID
and she was quarantining in her room
for like seven or eight days before and training in her room
and then like came out of her room like Superwoman
and medaled. And then the other,
the gold medalist, she has an amazing story.
She defected from Canada to come here and compete.
She literally left her own country to -- Yes.
-'Cause she's like, "I want to represent the U.S."
-Yeah.
-But I watched the Olympics and I go,
"This is great to watch because I would never do any of these."
-No. -Maybe curling.
-Yeah, well, curling --
it feels like my brother-in-law could do it.
-But that's how easy they make it look, right?
They go, "Oh, I can do it."
-But they are -- I mean, it's almost like a joke,
because people talk about curling like a joke.
But I don't understand.
They have -- they have brooms.
-They've come on the show and they've shown me that.
It's very difficult. -Yeah.
-'Cause once you get the speed going,
that's one thing, but then it's up to the team.
You've got to trust these people
to sweep the speed up or slow it down or not sweep.
-It's to sweep or not sweep. That is the question.
But I watched that monobob, and I go, "No way."
No, I would never do anything like that.
-Oh, no, it looks -- It's insanely scary.
-And they've got these, like --
these shoes that have these teeth on them
that dig into the ice.
-I didn't even do that.
I wear ice skates that are, like,
rubber ice skates if I go ice skating.
-Yeah. I just get stressed out on ice.
-But you are a sporty guy. -I do like sports.
Yeah, I love tennis.
I'm a really big tennis -- -Do you play?
-I play a little bit. But I'm a huge Rafa Nadal fan.
He just won the Australian Open. -He's unbelievable.
-He's just had the most incredible --
-Nadal is unbelievable.
-He just had the most incredible comeback of all time
at the Australian open.
Amazing. And I got to know him a little bit about --
I don't know -- about seven or eight years ago
'cause we were at a tournament and we ran into his people.
Then we got introduced. So we sort of stayed in touch.
And he invited me, a few years back, to see
an exhibition match at Madison Square Garden,
which was really exciting, because it was --
-Wow.
-Yeah, because, you know, first of all, it's the Garden,
so it's, you know, that electric atmosphere.
And you don't see tennis there that often.
And we got to sit in the front row.
And it was him and Juan Martín del Potro,
who is another amazing Argentinean player.
And they're doing the match,
and about halfway through the match,
Nadal stops and he goes, "Wait.
Should we make it doubles?"
That's my Nadal impression. -That's not bad.
-It's not very good. And then he turns --
-I think that's the first time anyone's done
a Rafa Nadal --
-Yeah, he's -- Yeah, and he says, "Doubles?"
And then he looks at me and he goes,
"Come on, Ben Stiller, Ben Stiller, come on."
And he comes up to me, yeah,
and he pulls me out of the crowd,
so, which is simultaneously, like, the greatest --
Yeah, I'm having, like -- It's like a dream come true
to be in Madison Square Garden.
And people start cheering.
And, also, it's this nightmare that's happening simultaneously,
because I realize I really don't play tennis.
-Yeah, I don't want to do this in front of everybody.
-And I'm dressed in street clothes.
You know, usually, I wear tennis shoes.
Ironically, I'm wearing shoe-boots,
like, leather shoe-boots.
So -- And I got up there, and then del Potro pulls --
He goes, "Wait a minute.
I must have a partner."
And he pulls an 8-year-old girl out of the crowd.
Like, the cutest little 8-year-old girl.
And, you know -- And, immediately, I just died inside,
because I knew there was no way to get out of this thing alive,
because if I hit a winner on the 8-year-old girl,
everybody, you know, hates me, and then I don't have
enough skills to sort of, like, you know, hold it back,
because just, like, I'm all or nothing.
And, so... [ Laughter ]
So, you know, Nadal serves it.
The 8-year-old girl hits it back perfectly across the net.
The crowd cheers -- "Ahh!"
Comes to me, boom, right into the net.
Immediately, just, like --
Just all of Madison Square Garden, "Ugh!"
And, basically, we play 4 more points.
Every time, the girl hits it. They cheer every time.
I went back into the net four times.
And del Potro puts the girl on his shoulders
and they're cheering and she walks off.
And then I walk -- I didn't make eye contact with
Nadal, my wife, anybody.
-Anybody in the crowd.
-But the good thing that came out of this was that
I resolved to become the best tennis player in the world.
-And you're going to be.
-Someday, I will. -Yeah.
-I started taking lessons about --
It was like six years ago, and I started taking lessons.
And so I'm ready if it ever happens, like,
in life that somebody pulls me out of the crowd
to go play tennis with them,
which probably won't ever happen again.
-Yeah.
-And the little girl -- I want a rematch with her.
-Well, I will say -- -'Cause I do feel --
[ Applause ] Thank you. Yeah.
I feel like -- I do feel like she was a ringer.
I feel like, yeah, she had abilities beyond her --
what she seemed to --
-Yeah, and now you know what you're doing.
-Yes, now I'm ready. Now I'm ready.
-But is she more ready?
-She's probably playing on
the pro tour right now, I'm sure.
-I want to talk about your show,
"Severance," when we come back.
More with Ben Stiller when we come back, everybody.