If you ever want to see Barbra Streisand back as part of the Meet The Parents franchise again, producers better be willing to pay up!!
On Monday, the 83-year-old legend was the guest on trade pub Variety‘s aptly-named podcast Just For Variety. And while she was ostensibly there to promote her latest album The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two, the conversation quickly veered into other areas. That included a frank discussion about Ariana Grande joining up to act in the forthcoming fourth installment Meet The Parents 4 alongside Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, and the whole rest of the crew!
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Of course, Babs played Roz Focker in both 2004’s Meet The Fockers and 2010’s Little Fockers. So, naturally, Variety queried the performer about whether she’d be down to return alongside Grande et al for the latest film! And the answer is… NO!
Babs explained:
“Oh my God. They’d have to pay me a lot of money because I didn’t get paid what the other people got paid and so I’m pissed off.”
Whoa!!!
See, back when Streisand starred in the sequel(s) to the now-iconic 2000 film Meet The Parents, she — and every other woman in the biz — was dealing with the awful realities of the gender wage gap in Hollywood! It didn’t matter that she was literally one of the most famous people on earth. It didn’t matter that she was just as talented as her on-screen husband in that funny follow-up flick, Dustin Hoffman. And it didn’t matter that she acted up a storm alongside Stiller, De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, and all the rest! Not one bit!
To hear Streisand tell it, the ladies were getting the shaft on the deal. But she did also note the head honcho over at production company Universal Pictures realized something was amiss… after the fact:
“I was in the time when women were getting paid less than the men. The head of Universal was Ron Meyer at the time, and he actually sent me a bonus check. It was very sweet.”
So, at least there’s that.
BTW, this tracks with a memorable story told in the Evergreen singer’s 2023 memoir. Writing about her life and career in My Name Is Barbra, the crooner recalled how Hoffman reportedly received three times (!) more than she did to appear in the 2004 and 2010 film installments PLUS a “tiny percentage” of the mega-flick. Had it not been for Meyer’s conscience, she wrote, the thing would have been 100% awful:
“I didn’t ask what the other actors were making, but I was definitely hurt when I found out that Dustin was getting three times as much as me, plus a tiny percentage, which is significant on a movie that made $520 million. I was given some excuse about how I had been the last to sign, but the only thing that made me feel better was when my dear friend Ron Meyer, who was the head of Universal, gave me a bonus. … [That was] the first and only time I ever got one. I guess he, too, thought it was unfair.”
And so, here’s just one more example of how the gender wage gap is totally BRUTAL! How are you gonna pay an EGOT winner less than her male counterparts?!?! F**k that!
Honestly, as much as we’d love to see Roz Focker grace the big screen again, we’re totally with Streisand on this one. If you want her to ever reprise that role, you better PAY HER!!!
Thoughts, y’all??
[Image via Universal Pictures/YouTube/Brian To/WENN]
The post Barbra Streisand Still PISSED After Learning She Made Less Than Her <i>Meet The Fockers</i> Co-Stars! appeared first on Perez Hilton.