Ben Stiller’s phone is buzzing. Each time someone sends a text, it alerts him with the sound of Roy Scheider’s police chief, Brody, telling Robert Shaw’s Quint that his vessel, the Orca, is not of sufficient size to deal with the 25-foot great white shark he just saw popping out of the Atlantic.

Stiller apologizes and silences his phone, which continues to vibrate busily on the table.

When we first met in early June, Stiller was in the thick of writing and prepping the next season of “Severance,” the sci-fi drama that led all TV series with 27 Emmy nominations this year. He was also putting the finishing touches on a documentary about his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. And in a few minutes, he’d be driving over to Rob Reiner’s house to shoot an interview about “This Is Spin

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