Ben Stiller is Walter Mitty

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is based on a short story first published in 1939, which was adapted to the screen a few years later.

This 21st century version stars Ben Stiller who also directs the movie. He plays Walter Mitty, who works for Life magazine and spends much of his time daydreaming about his fictitious adventurous life.

“The idea is so iconic – the idea of the daydreamer, this guy who has this incredible life in his head that just doesn’t translate into reality. That sticks with you, I think that’s why the story has stuck around for so long,” says Ben Stiller.

The film is Stiller’s fifth as a director. It blends outstanding digital effects with stunning sets and landscapes.

“I felt like the story is a very visual story and I really wanted to try and tell it in that way because Walter is a guy who cares about images, he spends most of his time looking at images and he goes off into the world and he starts to realise some of these fantasies that he’s had. So we went to Iceland and we shot there which is a really incredible landscape, and shooting in New York is, you know, just an amazing place to shoot also. The whole thing was trying to find, every time we got to a new sequence, you know, how can we tell this in a visual way?”

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is out now in cinemas worldwide.