Meet the Parents (2000)
- During the filming of Meet the Parents, Ben Stiller improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
- Before Ben Stiller was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
- Jay Roach originally wanted a completely different ending for the film, but test audiences preferred the one we see today.
Meet the Parents is a 2000 American comedy directed by Jay Roach. Ben Stiller stars as Greg "Gaylord" Focker, a male nurse desperately trying to impress his girlfriend's intimidating father Jack Byrnes, played by Robert De Niro, a retired CIA operative whose surveillance skills, polygraph machine, and circle of trust make every moment of Greg's visit to the Byrnes household an escalating nightmare of embarrassment and suspicion. Ben Stiller's genius for portraying a well-meaning man whose anxiety causes him to make every possible situation worse was deployed to maximum effect β each attempt to impress Jack results in a more catastrophic humiliation, from setting the backyard on fire to breaking the urn containing his future mother-in-law's ashes.
Robert De Niro's restrained menace as the overprotective father who deploys CIA interrogation techniques on prospective sons-in-law was a perfect comedic counterweight. The phrase "circle of trust" entered popular culture. Meet the Parents earned $330 million worldwide on a $55 million budget and spawned two sequels.
