Minutes before the actor Ben Stiller read a Dr. Seuss story to hundreds of New York City public school students yesterday morning, he said he feels a connection with the not-so-bright hero of his 2001 film comedy “Zoolander.”

“I can identify with Derek Zoolander,” the New York native said. “We all had our issues in school, growing up.”

In the movie, Mr. Stiller plays Zoolander, a male model brainwashed into attempting to assassinate the prime minister of Malaysia. At one point the character ridicules a school called the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good when he thinks the tabletop architectural model is the actual center.

Mr. Stiller might have played a slow character or two, but he said he cares deeply about helping to inspire children to read.

“I think we should do what we can,” he said. “Anything that can inspire kids to read is a good thing.”

Mr. Stiller attended private schools growing up in New York City – first the Congregation B’nai Jeshurun school, then Cathedral, then Calhoun. Now a resident of Los Angeles, he spoke of reading to his 3-year-old daughter.

“You see the beginning of it at that age, how kids love to be read to, and we can instill some kind of excitement about that, and I see it, how she gets into it,” he said.”You want to keep that alive in this day and age when there are so many kinds of media that can distract kids from that.”

About 1,000 students gathered at Alice Tully Hall for the “celebrity read aloud” after a Learning Leaders fundraising breakfast. They gave Mr. Stiller a rock-star welcome when he walked onto the stage and stood under a large poster for the book he read, “Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose.”

After encouraging the audience members to snort and buzz like bees as he read the book, Mr. Stiller said: “Let’s hear it for the moose, Thidwick.” Children applauded, but the volume went up dramatically when the moderator came back onstage and said, “Let’s hear it for Ben Stiller.”

“He was a good reader and very famous,” a fourth-grader at P.S. 224 in Brooklyn, Isamar Duran, said.

The keynote speaker at the breakfast was the schools chancellor, Joel Klein. He told corporate leaders – including the CEO of Colgate-Palmolive, Reuben Mark, and the chairman and CEO of Time Inc., Ann Moore – that parent involvement is “so absolutely critical.”

But he said more businesses and individuals should get involved at the city’s public schools – not just those who are naturally predisposed to volunteer through such programs as Learning Leaders.

Referring to his mission of reforming the school system, Mr. Klein said, “I assure you, there’s nothing more vital.”