Ariana Grande is a BAFTA, Oscar, and Golden Globe nominated actor, a three-time Grammy award-winning pop megastar, and a very, very funny woman. The triple threat! Not only have the ‘Thank U, Next’ singer’s comic chops shone as Wicked’s Glinda, but lest we forget Grande started out in comedy with Nickelodeon’s Victorious and has regularly stolen the show with her SNL appearances. Now, in long-gestating Meet The Parents fourquel Focker In-Law, Grande is about to flex her funny bones alongside Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro as Olivia Jones, Greg Focker’s son Henry’s (Skyler Gisondo) overachieving new girlfriend. Check out the trailer below to see how Olivia enters the Focker family’s circle of trust;
Interrogation scene? Check. Ben Stiller’s ‘Gregfocker’ slipping into the Robert De Niro role from Meet The Parents while De Niro and Grande riff gleefully off one another? Check. Cringe-out penis jokes, awkward family dinners, and the return of Owen Wilson to the Focker fold? Check, check, and treble-check! As trailers go, Focker In-Law is kinda ticking all the boxes for fans of the franchise a decade and a half on from less-than-spectacular original trilogy capper Meet The Parents: Little Focker. And, as a former FBI hostage negotiator whose hyper competence has Greg (and us) on red alert, Grande fits into the dysfunctional family’s dynamic seamlessly here, fearlessly throwing herself into everything from heimliching Ben Stiller to going to two-wheeled war with her prospective father-in-law. Even if she is called ‘evil Geppetto’ and knocked off her bike by an over-protective Greg Focker.
Written and directed by franchise veteran John Hamburg, with Stiller, De Niro, Wilson, Teri Polo, and Blythe Danner all back to reprise their roles from the original Focker trilogy opposite franchise flesh blood Beanie Feldstein and Skyler Gisondo, the groundwork has certainly been laid for a winning return from the chaotic comedy saga. We look forward to finding out if Grande is a real Focker — or merely a Fock-ing fraud — when Focker In-Law hits cinemas in November.