Trivia / Meet the Parents

• Acting for Two: The picture of Rusty Bridges, the minor league baseball player and Jorge's biological father, is obviously Ben Stiller. He physically appears in a deleted scene played by Stiller.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • It was Ben Stiller's idea to change Greg from an advertising agent to a male nurse. Jim Carrey also came up with the surname "Focker" during a creative session before he abandoned the project.
  • The idea to use a lie detector test came from Robert De Niro while he was researching a role. He read up on polygraphs and presented his findings to Jay Roach at a pre-shoot dinner. "At that point, there was no lie detector scene in the script", Roach told Entertainment Weekly. "But after hearing all this, I thought, 'Oh, this has to be in our movie.' Now it's become the central image of all the ads, the trailers, everything." Jack Byrnes, being ex-C.I.A., was always part of his character since the beginning.
• B-Team Sequel: Jay Roach, the director of the first two films, dropped down to being a producer for Little Fockers. John Hamburg, the co-writer of the first two films was originally going to make the step-up to director, but ended up dropping out to make I Love You, Man, leaving Paul Weitz to direct the end product.
• California Doubling:
  • Although set in Chicago, none of the first movie was filmed there.
  • The second movie was set in Florida, yet was filmed in California.
• Character Outlives Actor: In Little Fockers, Debbie Burns is getting a divorce from Dr. Bob offscreen because her actress Nicole DeHuff died from pneumonia in February 16, 2005.
• Corpsing: When Greg is having his outburst on the plane, a man in the background to the left can be seen trying not to laugh.
• Deleted Scene: The first DVD contains deleted scenes including an extended chase after the cat that goes into the crawlspace under the house in which Greg hears different members of the family talking about him. Also included is a scene in which itineraries for the wedding rehearsal are handed out but there are spelling mistakes such as eating at the 'surf-n-turd'. These mistakes are blamed on Greg. This also explains why Jack later yells out for everyone to get their revised itineraries.
• Enforced Method Acting: Ben Stiller hated his clothes in the film. Jay Roach said it was all part of the plan to keep Stiller as uncomfortable as Greg.
• Fake Mixed Race: Jorge Villalobos who's half-Hispanic and half-white (through his baseball player father) is played by Ray Santiago, who's fully Hispanic (specifically of Puerto Rican descent).
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Owen Wilson brought a lot of his own ideas to the film, and improvised many of his lines.
• Money, Dear Boy: Robert De Niro's $20 million salary is his explanation for making Little Fockers.
• The Other Darrin: In the Canadian French dub of Meet the Fockers^note The first movie never had a Canadian French dub., Jack Byrnes is voiced by Jean-Marie Moncelet while Kevin Rawley is voiced by Luis de Cespedes. In Little Fockers, they are instead voiced by Hubert Gagnon and Antoine Durand respectively.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: You just can't deny that Ray Santiago, who played Isabel's 15-year-old son Jorge in Meet the Fockers, simply is younger Puerto Rican Ben Stiller.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Little Fockers was filmed in late 2008/early 2009 (on-set photos were shown on AOL News during this time), but was pushed back to incorporate scenes for Dustin Hoffman (who initially opted out of the 2nd sequel). This would explain why Jack is using MySpace to spy on Greg, instead of the now more popular Facebook.
• Uncredited Role: Alexander Payne was an uncredited script doctor for the screenplay.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jim Carrey was considered at one point for the role of Greg, and even contributed jokes to the screenplay, including Greg's surname "Focker". At this stage, Steven Spielberg was going to direct with Al Pacino as Jack.
  • Christopher Walken and Anthony Hopkins were both considered for the role of Jack.
  • The role of Pam Byrnes was initially given to Naomi Watts. She ultimately lost the role to Teri Polo because the filmmakers did not think she was "sexy" enough. Julia Stiles auditioned for the role, but dropped out due to filming 10 Things I Hate About You. Christina Ricci was also considered.
  • Steven Soderbergh was originally attached to direct.
  • James Brolin was originally approached for the role of Bernie, but turned it down. Robin Williams also turned it down.

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