8 hours ago
Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro tease 'Meet the Parents 4' with Ariana Grande
Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro tease 'Meet the Parents 4' with Ariana Grande
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Ben Stiller talks new holiday movie 'Nutcrackers'
Ben Stiller tells USA TODAY's Marco della Cava what it was like working with kids and animals on his new Hulu movie 'Nutcrackers.'
NEW YORK − They "Meet" again!
"Meet the Parents" director Jay Roach and stars Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro and Teri Polo reunited on Saturday, June 7, at Tribeca Film Festival for a 25th anniversary screening of the classic 2000 comedy. During a post-screening panel discussion, they teased the upcoming "Meet the Parents 4" and confirmed Ariana Grande has joined the cast. John Hamburg, who co-wrote the three previous films, will direct the new sequel.
"What spurred the idea was that at this point in time, I'm the age that (De Niro) was when we did the first movie," Stiller, 59, said. "It felt like this mirror to the first film in terms of the fact that my kids are grown, and one of my kids is thinking about introducing his person to the family."
But the actor added that there had to be a "reason to make" another sequel, and "this new point in our lives, where the characters are, felt like it really was an organic reason." While he said he's thinking of the fourth movie as a "new thing," Stiller said it will also benefit from the audience's relationship with the characters.
Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox
"The cool thing about doing the next one, too, is that the audience has this history with the characters, and they're going to bring that to the film," he said. "There's something that's kind of emotional about it for me, for the actors: the connection that people have with the movies."
Stiller starred in the original "Meet the Parents" as Greg Focker, who meets his girlfriend Pam's (Polo) mother (Blythe Danner) and father (De Niro) while getting ready to propose to her, only for absolutely everything possible to go wrong. It spawned two sequels: 2004's "Meet the Fockers" and 2010's "Little Fockers."
De Niro praised the script for the fourth film as "really good." He also recalled telling Stiller and Hamburg they should start working on another sequel while on the set of "Little Fockers."
"They said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure.' They were humoring me," De Niro said. "They didn't want to do it. But it was fine. And now, finally, we are doing another one."
Roach noted that the relatable predicament made the original "Meet the Parents" work, and he teased that Hamburg has come up with a similarly great setup for the fourth film.
"Everybody's going to love squirming through it, just like they did the old ones," he said.
And with Grande joining the family, Stiller joked, "The name of the movie is 'Wicked 3.' "
Ben Stiller on 'Nutcrackers': The actor thought his sweet Hulu movie might be a 'parody'
While looking back on the original "Meet the Parents" during the Tribeca panel, Stiller pointed out that its events mirrored his own life at the time. During rehearsals, he had just met his future wife, actress Christine Taylor, and decided he was going to propose to her
"Her parents lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and her dad owned a security company," Stiller said. "We had to go back for her grandfather's funeral, and I found myself in the basement of her house with her father after the funeral telling him that I loved his daughter and wanted to marry her. It was good research for the movie."
'People are seeing me' for first time: Ariana Grande on taking off the pop star mask
Stiller also noted that to this day, people still scream Focker, his character's last name, at him in public "all the time."
"I don't dislike it. It's just when someone yells 'Focker,' it doesn't necessarily feel respectful," he quipped.
Polo recalled joining the film shortly before filming began and remembered thinking during her screen test that "if I mess this up, I will never forgive myself. I will never have this chance again."
She added, "It was an amazing, amazing experience, and I thought it would never happen again. And now look at us."
