ben stillers contemporary rethink of james thurbers book the secret life of walter mitty also stars kirsten wiig and sean pean and is about a daydreamer who escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism romance and action stiller who apart from acting is for the first time directing and producing it what drew you to choose this story to direct what i love about this story is that it cant be categorised it has comedy drama and an adventure story its real and its fantastically hyperreal yet at the heart of it all is a character who i think everyone can connect to someone who appears to be just going through the motions of modern life but is living a whole different life inside his head to me he embodies all those things we imagine about ourselves and the world but that we never sayhow challenging was it directing and acting at the same time this movie is more complicated than some of the previous ones you have tackled it is always frustrating because you always want to be a better director for your actor and a better actor for your director you wish youd hired a better actor to be in two places at once is hard you just have to accept it i try to be open to getting as much help as possible and i work with people that i really respect in terms of the crew the cinematographer and the production designer the preparation work is really important so that the day youre there to act youre really there as an actoryouve achieved so much already what are your dreams and aspirations at this point there are lots of different kinds of movies i want to direct that i hope i will have the chance to do i want to make movies that dont feel comfortable that are outside my comfort zone that to me is huge and i feel like i have not got enough time to explore everything i want to explore i just want to keep on working and get better as a director you can catch the movie in theatres on january 3 2014