The ‘Cupertino’ star tells PEOPLE why it’s “never really been so much of an asking-for-advice thing” with her famous parents

NEED TO KNOW

• Ella Stiller, daughter of Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor, scored the “biggest” role of her career so far in the new CBS legal drama Cupertino
• She tells PEOPLE about landing the part and why she doesn’t go to her famous parents for advice
• New episodes of Cupertino air Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS and stream the next day on Paramount+

As the daughter of Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor, the acting bug is in Ella Stiller’s blood.

She’s currently playing a strong-headed legal assistant on Cupertino, the hit new legal drama on CBS, and Ella, 24, tells PEOPLE why acting advice isn’t what she goes to her famous parents for.

“It’s never really been so much of an asking-for-advice thing,” she says, adding, “It’s a total luxury to be able to call my mom or my dad and talk about work and the work that I’m doing, which is very specific, and have them understand what it is. To me, that’s the biggest thing.”

Rather than looking to Ben, 60, and Christine, 55, for “advice” or “pointers,” Ella says she calls her parents for reassurance more than anything. “Just being able to talk about [work] and to hear, ‘That’s normal,’ and, ‘You’re going to ease in,’ and, ‘I’m sure it’s great.’”

The “real support,” she says, is being able to “feel like they know what that feeling is” when she describes a tough day on set.

She relied on her parents, who also share son Quinlin, 21, for that reassurance in particular during the first few weeks of production on Cupertino. “I’ve never done any TV show on this scale before. This is the biggest part I’ve gotten on TV ever,” she explains. “So I was, oh my gosh, terrified. I remember feeling very stiff and feeling like I wasn’t living up to my full potential.”

Things finally clicked for her on episode 3. “It was always great, but then it was like, how great that I get to do the great thing without feeling like I’m going to throw up in the morning every time.”

When she was cast, Christine was Ella’s first call. “I called my mom. She actually [had] just left my apartment and I was just telling her, ‘Yep, and I’m just waiting on a phone call.’ She literally was in the car driving somewhere, and I called her,” she says. “She freaked out.”

Excitement aside, the role — which she said felt “too good to be true” when she first read the scripts because she “fell in love with Christy immediately” — made her parents somewhat jealous.

“They both were kind of like, ‘F— you,’ when I got this job, in the best way,” Ella told PEOPLE at the Cupertino premiere last month. The show is “uncharted territory” for her parents, since neither has starred on a procedural.

While it was daunting stepping onto set at first in March, knowing the long journey ahead, Ella says, “I don’t have to do any work to get in character. I feel like she lives inside of me and she always has.”

“It’s very freeing to play her because she just says the stuff that everyone else is thinking. I love that. I love just being able to say it out loud and be fearless and be bold,” she continues. “I think that the only difference really between me and her is that she has a little bit more of a fearlessness thing. It’s freeing, and it’s made me want to live my life more like that.”

New episodes of Cupertino air Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS and stream the next day on Paramount+.

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