Los Angeles, June 8 Hollywood legend Robert De Niro and actor Ben Stiller recently had a reunion as they gathered for the 25th anniversary of ‘Meet the Parents’ along with director Jay Roach.
The film is a comedy of errors about male nurse Greg Focker (played by Ben Stiller) who endures a lot of painfully awkward hijinks while visiting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time, reports ‘Variety’.
Robert De Niro plays Polo’s character’s father Greg
As per ‘Variety’, the three reunited at Manhattan’s Tribeca Performing Arts Center as part of this year’s Tribeca Festival, which was co-founded by De Niro and Jane Rosenthal in 2002.
“It’s so much fun to hear laughter in a theater with comedy that’s 25 years old”, Ben Stiller said during the Q&A after the screening. “It still works”.
Though a quarter century has passed since ‘Meet the Parents’, Stiller finds that audiences continue to associate him with Greg Focker. He jokes that he doesn’t always love when people in the wild address him by his character’s name.
“When someone yells ‘Focker!’ on the street, it doesn’t necessarily feel respectful”, Stiller said with a laugh. “Whenever I’m treated by a male nurse”, he added, “I feel a connection”.
On stage, Roach reminded Stiller that he was almost never in the movie. Steven Spielberg was in talks to direct the film with Jim Carrey as the lead role. When the duo chose to depart the project, Roach was hired as the filmmaker and Stiller as the star.
“(Jim Carrey) was going to be me?” Stiller said. “S***. I totally forgot that part”. Meanwhile, Polo joined the cast as the better half of Stiller’s fiancee-to-be at the last minute. “It was really late in the casting process, a few days before we started shooting”, Roach recalled. “She was thrown into it with these heavyweights”.
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