{"id":809656,"date":"2026-10-21T21:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809656\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T21:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:38:10","slug":"ariana-grande-went-toe-to-toe-with-de-niro-for-focker-in-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809656\/","title":{"rendered":"Ariana Grande \u2018Went Toe-To-Toe\u2019 With De Niro For Focker-In-Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since Meet The Parents<\/a>, the central tension of the Focker-verse (as nobody is calling it) has been between two greats: all-timer Robert De Niro, and comedy legend Ben Stiller. Now, 16 years after trilogy-closer Little Fockers, the series is back with Focker-In-Law<\/a>, which adds an unexpected new ingredient into the heavyweight mix: Ariana Grande. This time, Ben Stiller\u2019s Greg (aka Gaylord) Focker is the mistrustful parent unsure of his son\u2019s new beau, Grande\u2019s CIA hostage negotiator Olivia. And, of course, De Niro\u2019s Jack instantly takes a shine to her, upping the awkwardness.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, Grande was the perfect person to face off against Stiller and De Niro. \u201cShe very smoothly went toe-to-toe with Ben and got right in there with De Niro and the rest of the ensemble. She brought so much,\u201d director John Hamburg tells Empire. She was, he says \u201ca filmmaker\u2019s dream. She pushed me to rewrite and make her character as good as possible.\u201d All this despite blockbuster movies still being relatively new territory for her. \u201cI can’t believe she’s been in as few movies as she’s been in,\u201d says Hamburg. \u201cShe made a joke to me: \u2018John, I’ve been in two movies and they’re both called Wicked.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

De Niro describes Grande as \u201cterrific\u201d, while Stiller said she\u2019s \u201cthe only person who could have played that role\u201d \u2013 noting that she found several sides to Olivia\u2019s character. \u201cShe really understands how to be both someone who is Type A and strong-willed, but also be a foil for Greg and able to play that back and forth. And then you’re also rooting for her too, and that’s a hard line to walk,\u201d Stiller enthuses. \u201cI really believed her as this character. She has great timing and just has this amazing thing on screen where she emanates something you want to watch. It’s cool to work with someone like that, in the same way like with De Niro \u2013 somebody just has something and they bring it.\u201d Ready to meet the new Focker in town?<\/p>\n

\"Empire<\/p>\n

Read Empire\u2019s oral history of the Focker franchise in the Dune: Part Three issue<\/a>, on sale Thursday October 22. Pre-order a copy online here<\/a>. Focker-In-Law comes to cinemas from November 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever since Meet The Parents, the central tension of the Focker-verse (as nobody is calling it) has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}