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 o you want to marry the girl of your dreams - trouble is, you haven't counted on a prospective father-in-law from hell. Meet groom-to-be Greg Focker, played by Ben Stiller (There's Something About Mary). Greg's madly in love with Pam, (Teri Polo of TV's Felicity). When Greg and Pam take a trip to her parents' house in New York for her sister's wedding, Greg wants to make a really good impression on his girlfriend's parents - after all, he's set on marrying Pam. Pam tries to tip Greg off about her father, that he's a tough, overprotective ex-CIA agent. But no forewarning can prepare an ardent Greg for what's about to hit him. Pam's stern-faced father, Jack Byrnes, played by Robert De Niro, is convinced that no man can ever be right for his daughter. As soon as boyfriend meets Dad, disaster strikes. No matter how hard Greg tries to make himself likeable, things quickly go from bad to worse. Throughout the entire weekend, the two |
actors Robert De Niro Blythe Danner Ben Stiller Teri Polo director locations outtake |
| clash mercilessly. Two time Academy Award winner Robert De Niro (Analyze This, Godfather 2) is, without a doubt, one of Hollywood's most respected performers. A method actor from his first acting days, De Niro is known for the extraordinary lengths he'll take to immerse himself in each one of his roles. Comments Stiller about his co-star: "He's very nice. He doesn't really speak unless he has something to say." De Niro, known for his many serious and complex roles - as boxer Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, crazed Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, the cool wise guy in Goodfellas - has recently starred in much lighter fare. "Since Analyze This, I've gotten more comedy-related scripts, or whatever you want to call them," says De Niro. "As long as it's got a real base to it, I enjoy doing it." Some might say that actor Ben Stiller was born lucky. As the son of celebrity parents - talented comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara - he was off to a good show business start. At age 10, Stiller was making 8 mm films that had titles like They Called It Murder and Murder in the Park. He enrolled as a film major at UCLA, only to drop out nine months later. Four years after that, in 1987, he made his feature-film acting debut in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. In 1998, Stiller struck gold with the quirky comedy hit There's Something About Mary. That film made him famous as one of Hollywood's great comic actors. When Stiller was first approached to play the role of bumbling Greg, he was hesitant. But as soon as De Niro signed on as the battling father, Stiller said he had "no choice" but to commit. Coincidentally, during the shooting of Meet the Parents, Stiller "popped the question" to his real-life girlfriend, The Wedding Singer's Christine Taylor. Director Jay Roach (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) fell in love with an early draft of Meet the Parents shortly after completing the first Austin Powers movie. "I told Universal, 'This is the funniest thing I've read. I don't want to change any of it.' They said, 'We think it can be better.' I think what they were politely saying was, 'We think it can be better directed by somebody else,'" Roach told Entertainment Weekly. When the script got sent to DreamWorks, Roach says that he "pounded everybody involved, 'Please let me have it back,'" When the Austin Powers movie hit pay dirt, Roach got to make the film he wanted, along with Stiller and De Niro. - Brigitte Berman |