Production Information

Craig Hall - BarbraNews.com

Production Information

Four years ago, audiences were invited to come along with male nurse Greg (a.k.a. Gaylord) Focker (Ben Stiller) on a weekend as he lost his luggage, set the backyard on fire, went a little over-the-top in a game of water volleyball, spray painted the cat and was administered a lie-detector test by Jack Byrnes (ROBERT DE NIRO), his girlfriend’s father (who turned out to be not a horticulturalist, but an ex-CIA operative reluctant to allow Greg into The Byrnes Family Circle of Trust) in the blockbuster comedy Meet the Parents.
The film became the runaway hit of the fall of 2000, tallying more than $300 million worldwide.
Now, Greg has managed to earn his way inside the Circle of Trust and things are going great. He and his fiancée Pam (TERI POLO) are excitedly planning their wedding and there’s only one tiny, itsy-bitsy little thing left to smooth the way to the altar: the future in-laws need to spend a weekend together.
So, Greg and Pam climb aboard Jack’s new state-of-the-art RV (with the Kevlar-reinforced hull and the two-inch Plexiglas windows) for a trip to Focker Isle, the Cocoanut Grove domicile of Bernie and Roz Focker (DUSTIN HOFFMAN and BARBRA Streisand). The next 48 hours will provide the parents of the intended bride and groom a little time to get to know each other, but more importantly, give Jack the opportunity to study Greg’s parents.
Things start off well enough, but that’s before Jack discovers that the lawyer and doctor Greg presented are, in fact, a liberal stay-at-home dad and a senior citizens’ sex therapist. Then there’s the RV toilet episode, the overly zealous game of touch football, the saucy Cuban caterer with the secret, the incident with the toddler and the glue…
Ready or not, it’s time to Meet the Fockers…it’s just one weekend together. What could possibly go wrong?
The makers and stars behind the runaway hit of 2000, Meet the Parents, are re-united—and joined by some formidable future in-laws—in the follow-up comedy, Meet the Fockers. Returning to the roles they originated in Meet the Parents are ROBERT DE NIRO as Byrnes clan patriarch, Jack; BEN STILLER, as the soon-to-be son-in-law, Greg Focker; BLYTHE DANNER as Jack’s wife, Dina; and TERI POLO as Greg’s intended, Pam Byrnes. And joining as Greg’s inimitable parents, Bernie and Roz, the Fockers, are DUSTIN HOFFMAN and BARBRA STREISAND.
Director and producer JAY ROACH (Meet the Parents, Austin Powers in Goldmember) returns to the helm, along with screenwriters JIM HERZFELD (Meet the Parents) and JOHN HAMBURG (Along Came Polly, Meet the Parents); the story is by Herzfeld and MARC HYMAN (The Perfect Score). Meet the Fockers is produced by JANE ROSENTHAL (About a Boy, Meet the Parents), Robert De Niro and Jay Roach, and is based on characters created by GREG GLIENNA & MARY RUTH CLARKE (Meet the Parents).
The behind-the-camera roster of talent includes Meet the Parents alums, as well as new additions to the family: director of photography JOHN SCHWARTZMAN, A.S.C. (Seabiscuit, The Rookie); production designer RUSTY SMITH (Elf, Meet the Parents); editors JON POLL (Austin Powers in Goldmember, Meet the Parents) and LEE HAXALL (television’s Arrested Development and Hack); costume designer CAROL RAMSEY (Dodgeball, Scary Movie 3); and composer RANDY NEWMAN (Monsers, Inc., Meet the Parents). NANCY TENENBAUM (Pop Life, Meet the Parents) and AMY SAYRES (Secondhand Lions, Meet the Parents) serve as executive producers.


ABOUT THE PRODUCTION…
An old show business axiom dictates that comedy is truth—a glimmer of recognition, the acknowledgment of a familiar situation, as in “Hey, that happened to me,” quickly followed by the nearly instantaneous feeling of relief that this (most probably) painful situation is happening to someone else, onscreen.
For instance: being introduced to the intimidating parents of your intended spouse and finding out that your future father-in-law is a covert government agent with a knack for ferreting out the truth. Or, even worse still, after meeting the couple that produced the person you love, having your future in-laws down for their first introductions to your own flawed, idiosyncratic family—a stay-at-home father and liberal lawyer from the 1970s and his plain-speaking, sex counselor wife.
Parents…meet the parents.
In order for the originating filmmakers and cast of the runaway comedy hit of 2000, Meet the Parents, to return to the story of a male nurse named Gaylord Focker and his desire to marry the WASPy daughter of a CIA operative, all needed to be sure that the story was worth continuing and that the new ground trod would prove (as it had in the past) rife with comic and truthful possibilities.
And while the first film ended with the question that suggested a possible sequel, (when Jack Byrnes asks his wife, Dina, “What kind of people would name their child Gaylord Focker?”), it was much easier in theory than in reality to continue the comic storyline begun in the original. Because Meet the Parents proved successful with the public—eventually grossing more than $300 million worldwide—as well as critics, all concerned realized that the bar for a potential follow-up had been sat rather high.
“The response to the first movie was so overwhelming, that it was quite hard to find a story that could live up to our expectations for a sequel,” says producer of both Parents and Meet the Fockers, Jane Rosenthal. “We were genuinely thrilled that Parents had struck such a chord with audiences. So it was always about finding the best story.”
The key to the follow-up lay in finding out just who had produced Greg—what sort of people would, in fact, shackle a child with the name Gaylord Focker?
For the director of both films, Jay Roach, the issue was not so much who these Fockers would be, but how they would compare to the upstanding family from Oyster Bay, the Byrneses. And although always attached as the director of the possible sequel, Roach “needed to be convinced that there was a reason to make another film,” offers Rosenthal. “He always said, ‘There has to be a compelling reason to tell this story.’ It was never just a sequel for a sequel’s sake. He kept that question in the forefront of everyone’s mind every step of the way.”
Says Roach: “I think Greg Focker dreads the Byrneses meeting the Fockers because he knows that they’re worlds apart, both culturally and socially. In almost any way that you can imagine, the Fockers are going to be a little bit problematic for him in terms of the way he knows Jack Byrnes will look at them and judge them. It’s Greg’s dread and bleak fantasy that drives this all forward.”
Greg has continued in his habit of bending the truth, trying to tell people what he thinks they want to hear. It doesn’t help that he has intimated that his father is a lawyer (which he was, but put his career on hold to stay at home and raise Greg) and his mother, a doctor (true, but he’s left out the vital detail that she counsels senior citizens on ways to improve and prolong their sex life well into their twilight years).
It is the impending family get-together that will allow Pam’s father the chance to evaluate the legacy potential of the Focker family line—as Jack says in the film: “…like studying a frozen caveman, if I can see where you came from, I’ll have a better idea of where you’re going.”
“Jack is going to get a sense of what the two gene pools will create in terms of grandchildren and Greg knows that is what Jack is obsessed with,” notes Jay Roach. “Greg sees his potential downfall—Jack will look at his parents and see what Greg is truly all about. Because of this, Greg over-compensates and tries to manage things… which just makes it all worse.”
Once the idea for the movie was formulated and a screenplay embarked upon, the thoughts turned to casting: Who would and more importantly, who could play the Fockers?
“In our fantasy world, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand were our ‘dream team,’” offers Rosenthal. “The fact that they were initially intrigued with the idea was beyond our wildest dreams. Jay met with them, then Ben [Stiller] and Bob [De Niro] called them both up. Ben and Jay, I think, were really instrumental in helping persuade them both to be a part of the Focker family.”
Roach explains, “When we were looking for the perfect people to play Bernie and Roz, there weren’t a huge number of choices that seemed exactly right. There really were only two people, when you picture them with Ben.”
“I initially had this image of who ‘Dustin Hoffman’ was supposed to be,” explains Ben Stiller, who originated the role of the Focker scion and reprises it in the new film. “The actor from The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy and Rain Man—a real body of work with an iconic stature. But in reality, he’s a really funny and goofy guy, actually closer to Bernie than to some of the famous roles he’s played. He’s incredibly warm and generous as an actor.”
Filmmakers initially approached Hoffman, taking a cue from psychology textbooks that the father/son link is perhaps the most profound in establishing exactly who a son turns out to be. Says Roach: “We wanted to lock that relationship in first, to provide a really important dynamic and complete what would be a key triangle, between Jack and Greg and Greg and Bernie.”
Potential scheduling difficulties were ironed out once the director sat down with Hoffman at his Los Angeles office: “Dustin is barefoot in his office and I listen to him talk about his family and everything else. He’s incredibly generous and open, and 10 minutes after you’ve met him you, you feel like he’ll tell you anything…and I realized he just is Bernie Focker.”
So strongly did Roach feel that the actor inhabited the qualities he saw in the head of the Focker family that he fed the writers details about Hoffman to incorporate into the character.
“Who Dustin is and who Bernie came to be were in perfect synchronicity,” adds the director. “Dustin has no personal space issues whatsoever. He’ll eat the food off of your plate and you can eat the food off of his. After talking with his wife, Lisa, I realized that he is the Jewish mother of his own family, similar to Bernie’s relationship to his family. And that dynamic is in direct contrast to Jack’s alpha male—not wanting to relinquish control of his family. With that set, I knew the core of the movie was in place.”
In essence, Roach was asking Hoffman to play himself. “And over all these years, no one had ever asked me to do that,” says Hoffman.
“Bernie Focker is basically the kind of a guy who wouldn’t mind leaving the door open while he went to the bathroom on an airplane just so he could continue a conversation with the people that he was talking to around his seat,” says Hoffman.
“In looking at Bernie and Jack,” he continues, “I guess I would say that opposites are sometimes the same. We appear to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, ideologically speaking, but in a way we’re both overbearing to our children, not allowing them to individuate. This is the third time I’ve worked with Bob, and it’s always easy and fun to be in a project with him. And Ben’s comic instincts are as sharp as any actor I’ve ever worked with.”
In looking to casting Bernie’s mate, the list was, once again, extremely short. Per Roach: “We wanted someone who was a truth-speaker, very direct and uninhibited—also very open and affectionate. And Barbra just brought an amazing complexity to the character. Roz is the breadwinner and Barbra has this strength that was right for Greg’s mom. Barbra Streisand in real life is incredibly sweet and incredibly loving and also very direct. She just says exactly what she thinks and has strong opinions about things—as with Dustin and Bernie, the character and the actress were perfectly in tune.”
Stiller found the part of Roz provided Streisand “with a chance to return to some of the lighter comedies she’d done previously, like What’s Up Doc? and others. She’s a truly impressive artist—she is an icon, but she’s also funny and smart and just great to be around. She’s extremely warm and, like Roz, she has that ability to really listen.”
The teaming of Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman and the two characters that they portray in the film proved fortuitous and joyous. The joie de vivre they invested in Bernie and Roz provide a marked contrast to the stand-up rigidity of Jack and Dina Byrnes, as created by Robert DeNiro and Blythe Danner.
Streisand hadn’t acted in eight years (since The Mirror Has Two Faces) by her own volition. “I felt I had settled into a relaxed way of living at this point in my life, not worrying about getting up at five in the morning. But, Jay was very persuasive, and I adore him. It’s always nice to be asked by a director who wants you, specifically, in a part. Ben called me from Europe and was very insistent that I should play his mother, so I resigned myself to getting up at five in the morning,” recalls Streisand. “And it’s turned out to be a good decision and a wonderful adventure.”
Considering that she is an esteemed comedic talent, it is remarkable that prior to Meet the Fockers, Barbra Streisand had made only one other comedic film in the past 25 years, the 1993 romantic comedy The Mirror Has Two Faces (which she also directed and for which she wrote the Oscar®-nominated theme song). She starred in The Main Event in 1979.
Streisand and Hoffman have been friends for over 40 years but the new film is the first time the two have worked together. “We went to an acting school together, and Dustin was dating my roommate at the time,” recalls Streisand. “He was the janitor at the school to pay for classes and I was babysitting for my teacher in exchange for classes. Working with him is really fun, because we both like to improvise—like musical riffs, instruments playing around the melody.”
Streisand also describes her character as “earthy.” “Roz looks like she was dropped out of the 1970s, with the big curly hair [a wig since Streisand has straight hair] and clothing reflecting various ethnicities and eccentricities. She is a sex therapist, and her office is extremely bohemian with the very suggestive, sexual images that reflect her profession. Actually, at first, I thought I was nothing like Roz…someone who is very open about sexual matters…but then I thought we both believe in love and passion in the later stages of life. A sense of fun and freedom, a self-assuredness, a desire to help other people — actually, the pursuit of life, liberty and above all…happiness.”
Roach realized that the performer had always been responsible for carrying her films as an actress or as a director (sometimes both), so his first job was to remind her that her own responsibility was to enjoy herself. “I told her that Roz would liberate her,” says Roach. “The only thing she had to do was enjoy creating and performing the character. She and Dustin both found they’re own chemistry and a process which enabled them simply to play.”
For the producer, the Fockers and the Byrneses, as different as they are, have more in common than they realize. Rosenthal observes: “Basically, if you look at the Fockers, there is such a thing as loving your child too much. That said, however, that actually makes them very much like the Byrneses, who’ve been a bit overprotective of their daughter. If you really boil it down, it’s sort of the difference between cats and dogs. The Byrneses have Jinx the cat, who’s back, and the Fockers have Moses, their dog. So it’s cat people versus dog people, really.”
“It was, in the beginning, a surreal experience,” adds Stiller, “coming to work and seeing De Niro and Hoffman and Streisand on the set together. I would just step back and take in the enormity of it. But the really surprising thing for me was that after the first week or so, it really felt like a family. Dustin and Barbra are so good and so committed to the characters, that they had a great connection—and it was fantastic to just plug in to that. The entire cast, I just felt like it was a once in a lifetime experience to get to act with these people.”
Roach relished the chance to work with his returning cast, as well as the new additions—yet felt the pressure of helming such a high-voltage group of acting talent: “I can’t say I wasn’t intimidated when I started this movie. I mean, I was completely intimidated the first time I met De Niro, and Ben’s one of my all-time comedic and acting heroes. And then you throw in Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand, and add Blythe Danner and Teri Polo; all six of them together make one amazing cast. During pre-production on a film I’m always stressed, and maybe I was even more so on this one, but I fought through that fear while directing the film and telling the story because I really wanted to deliver for these talented people, to give them the best environment they’ve ever had.”
De Niro also enjoyed his return engagement as the now semi-retired CIA agent, Jack Byrnes, obsessed with guaranteeing the Byrnes family lineage into the future—and digging in the Focker family closet to disclose any possibilities of chinks in the chain to tomorrow. Additionally, De Niro returns in his capacity as producer. On his relationship to his character: “With every part you use some parts of yourself. But there are some things that I’m definitely not like him—I’ll let you figure it out.
“Working with Ben again, who’s got priceless comic timing, and this great cast—it’s been amazing. Jay is very easy and accommodating, really terrific at trying to make everyone feel at ease. I know it’s hard on him, but it’s easier on us. Basically, he suffers for our sins,” he adds, smiling.
Returning as Mrs. Byrnes, the ever elegant Dina, is Blythe Danner, who looked forward to re-crossing the rocky familial terrain first traversed in Parents. Sporadically, over the last four years, the actress had been asked by fans of the original when the follow-up could be expected. For her, the wait has been more than worth it.
Danner says, “Not that I’m recognized all the time, but when I am, nearly always someone would ask, ‘When’s the next one?’ I have to say re-visiting the character has just been a ball. And with Barbra and Dustin added to our growing family, it’s a little bit like the Marx Brothers on the set—one is wackier than the next.”
In addition to providing her with another foray into comic territory, what particularly intrigued the primarily dramatic actress was the potential for growth for Dina: “Coming from their world into this new milieu, at first, takes their breath away. It raises their eyebrows, so to speak. Then, she just loves it. She loves the freedom of these people, the abandon of these people, the openness of them. A lot of people say that comedy’s much harder than drama and I haven’t really done enough to know. I mean, every time I’ve done a comedy, which has been a handful, I’ve just had a ball. I’ve been lucky enough to have great co-workers and great directors, which I have here in spades. So for me it’s been wonderful.”
Teri Polo, re-cast as youngest Byrnes daughter and Greg’s fiancée, Pam, echoes her onscreen mother when she says, “It’s insane on the set. It’s like trying to wrangle a bunch of kids. We’ve been very silly. But it’s been so much fun, so much laughter—I’m sure that the producers and Jay and everybody else were just ready to rip their own heads off, but we had a blast. Sometimes, I found myself just sitting there, watching the scene because I’m so blown away by what I’m seeing. And I realize that, oops, I’m supposed to be acting and reacting off-camera. I’m in the scene! But it’s been a complete honor and a blast at the same time.”
Polo points out that while her family embarks on a road trip that takes them down to Florida and the Focker family home, the true journey is for Greg, that “it’s really about his coming to accept his own parents—and all of us get to go along for the ride.”
Roach is quick to laud the females in the Byrnes clan: “Of course it’s great that both Blythe and Teri are back—it wouldn’t be a family reunion without them! What’s even better is that they’re both so comfortable in their roles that they really provide a stability in the scheme of things. We even get to see them both grow as characters, which gives us more insight into the excellent work that both of these wonderful actresses are doing as Dina and Pam.”
Of their director, Stiller seems to speak for the cast when he says, “Jay is sort of a comedy-savant type of director. All of these thoughts go through his head and then he shoots them out of his camera onto the screen. He’s one of the most unassuming guys you’d ever meet. He has the ability to make a movie that nearly everybody can relate to—he makes it look easy, so most people don’t understand the intricate process and the incredible juggling act that he’s constantly doing. It’s his own fault. I mean, if he’d just sweat sometimes then maybe we’d see how much work it is.”
Hoffman adds, “He’s indefatigable. In a good comedy, the audience is opened up by laughter, so that a director can slip in unexpected truths about the complexity of being a human being, getting through life…like being able to leave your parents after you left your parents. Everyone can relate, and that’s the nature of the comedy. Jay gets that on a fundamental level. He’s also funny.”

* * *
While Meet the Parents was shot on Long Island, there was little need to return back East since this time around, the storyline was about meeting the Fockers, who reside around Miami. Waterside locations were scouted from Ventura County to Orange County, but nothing caught Jay Roach’s eye until he visited the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden and spied the 120-year-old Queen Anne Cottage, built in 1885, that is one of the centerpieces of the grounds. While the house could not be touched, the production was allowed to put a “skin” around it to provide a South Florida look and dress the front of the structure with appropriate indigenous foliage.
Says producer Rosenthal: “Our production designer, Rusty Smith, created a wonderful setting for the Byrnes home the first time around. And this home is pretty much the antithesis. When you walk into the Focker house, you know you are in some place totally different and fun. You can feel their personalities coming off the walls.”
To finish off the setting, the filmmakers pumped in one-million gallons of water to fill up the dry lagoon in front of the house.
Locations in the Sepulveda Dam Basin in the San Fernando Valley and Recreation Park in Long Beach—both very flat expanses, no hills and very green—were used for assorted Florida roadways.
The Paseo Colorado, an outdoor mall in Pasadena, was utilized for the scenes where Roz takes Pam and Dina shopping. It was for only one day of filming but Teri Polo remembers it vividly: “As it turns out paparazzi were everywhere since we were shooting in public and I remember thinking at that moment what a giant star Barbra is, as well as Dustin and Bob—they have these giant lives. And every day after that I thought what an honor it was for me to be watching these genius actors perform.”
Roach closes, “I think audiences will be very pleased by the balance between what they expect and what they might find surprising—and occasionally very magical—when Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner and Teri Polo meet Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman and Ben Stiller. It’s pretty amazing.”
DreamWorks Pictures and Universal Pictures Present A Tribeca/Everyman Pictures Production of A Jay Roach Film: Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand in Meet the Fockers, starring Blythe Danner, Teri Polo. The music is by Randy Newman. The costume designer is Carol Ramsey. The co-producer is Jon Poll. The film is edited by Jon Poll and Lee Haxall. The production designer is Rusty Smith; the director of photography is John Schwartzman, A.S.C. The executive producers are Nancy Tenenbaum and Amy Sayres. It is based on characters created by Greg Glienna & Mary Ruth Clarke. The film is produced by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Jay Roach. The story is by Jim Herzfeld and Marc Hyman, with a screenplay by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg. Meet the Fockers is directed by Jay Roach. © 2004 Universal Studios and DreamWorks LLC www.meetthefockers.com




ABOUT THE CAST…
Robert De Niro (Jack Byrnes / Producer) launched his prolific motion picture career in Brian De Palma’s The Wedding Party in 1969. By 1973 De Niro twice won the New York Film Critics’ Award for Best Supporting Actor in recognition of his critically acclaimed performances in Bang the Drum Slowly and Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets.
In 1974 De Niro received the Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II. In 1980 he won his second Oscar®, as Best Actor, for his extraordinary portrayal of Jake La Motta in Scorsese’s Raging Bull. De Niro has earned Academy Award® nominations in four additional films: as Travis Bickle in Scorsese’s acclaimed Taxi Driver, as a Vietnam vet in Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter, as a catatonic patient brought to life in Penny Marshall’s Awakenings and in 1992 as Max Cady, an ex-con looking for revenge, in Scorsese’s remake of the 1962 classic Cape Fear.
De Niro’s distinguished body of work also includes performances in Elia Kazan’s The Last Tycoon; Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900; Ulu Grosbard’s True Confessions and Falling in Love; Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America; Scorsese’s King of Comedy, New York, New York, Goodfellas and Casino; Terry Gilliam’s Brazil; Roland Joffe’s The Mission; Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables; Alan Parker’s Angel Heart; Martin Brest’s Midnight Run; David Jones’ Jacknife; Martin Ritt’s Stanley & Iris; Neil Jordan’s We’re No Angels; Ron Howard’s Backdraft; Michael Caton-Jones’ This Boy’s Life; John McNaughton’s Mad Dog and Glory; A Bronx Tale; Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Michael Mann’s Heat; Barry Levinson’s Sleepers and Wag the Dog; Jerry Zaks’ Marvin’s Room; Tony Scott’s The Fan; James Mangold’s Copland; Alfonso Cuarón’s Great Expectations; Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown; John Frankenheimer’s Ronin; Harold Ramis’ Analyze This and Analyze That; Joel Schumacher’s Flawless; Des McAnuff’s The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle; Jay Roach’s Meet the Parents; George Tillman’s Men of Honor; John Herzfeld’s 15 Minutes; Frank Oz’s The Score; Tom Dey’s Showtime; Michael Caton-Jones’ City By the Sea; and Nick Hamm’s Godsend. He recently finished production on John Polson’s Hide and Seek and Mary McGuckian’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey and supplied the voice of Don Lino in DreamWorks’ Shark Tale.
De Niro takes pride in the development of his production company, Tribeca Productions, and the Tribeca Film Center, which he founded with Jane Rosenthal in 1988. Through Tribeca, he develops projects on which he serves in a combination of capacities, including producer, director and actor.
Tribeca’s A Bronx Tale marked De Niro’s directorial debut. Tribeca’s current projects include: Meet the Fockers with Universal, the follow-up to Meet the Parents, which re-teams De Niro and Ben Stiller; Stage Beauty, starring Billy Crudup and Claire Danes, directed by Sir Richard Eyre; and House of D, David Duchovny’s directorial debut, which stars Duchovny and Robin Williams (slated for March 2005). Upcoming projects include: The Good Shepherd with Universal, which De Niro will direct with Leonardo DiCaprio starring; and the screen adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s Rent, directed by Chris Columbus.
Tribeca’s previous film productions include About a Boy (2002); Analyze That (2002); Showtime (2002); Meet the Parents (2000); The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000); Analyze This (1999); Flawless (1999); the Academy Award®-nominated Wag the Dog (1997); Marvin’s Room (1996); The Night We Never Met (1993); Thunderheart (1992); Mistress (1992); and Night and the City (1992).
In 1992, Tribeca TV was launched with the critically acclaimed series Tribeca; De Niro served as one of the series executive producers. In 1998, Tribeca produced a miniseries for NBC, based on the life of Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano.
Tribeca Productions is headquartered at De Niro’s Tribeca Film Center, in the TriBeCa district of New York. The Film Center is a state-of-the-art office building designed for the film and television industry. The eight-story facility features office space, a screening room, banquet hall and restaurant, in addition to a full range of services for entertainment industry professionals.

Ben Stiller (Greg Focker) was recently seen in the 20th Century Fox film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, opposite Vince Vaughn. The film, which he produced with his Red Hour Films partner Stuart Cornfeld, opened number one at the box office and was the biggest grossing comedy of the summer. In the film, a group of misfits enter a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament in order to save their cherished local gym from the onslaught of a corporate health fitness chain owned by the eccentric White Goodman, played by Stiller.
Earlier this year, Stiller starred as classic television character Starsky, opposite Owen Wilson as Hutch, in Todd Phillips’ smash hit comedy Starsky & Hutch. Based on the long-running ABC series, the feature version focused on the formation of the duo’s partnership and also starts Vince Vaughn and Snoop Dogg. The film was also produced by Red Hour Films.
Prior to that, Stiller starred opposite Jennifer Aniston in the romantic comedy Along Came Polly, written and directed by John Hamburg for Universal Pictures. In the film, Stiller plays a risk-averse man who analyzes risk for a living; his life is subsequently turned upside down when he gets involved in a risky romance with Aniston’s Polly character. The impressive cast also includes Debra Messing, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Hank Azaria.
In 2001, Stiller directed and starred in the title role of the Paramount Pictures comedy Zoolander, based on the story of Derek Zoolander, the male model character he co-created with Drake Sather for the VH-1 Fashion Awards. Stiller also co-wrote the movie with Drake Sather and John Hamburg (Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers and director/writer of Along Came Polly). He also produced with Scott Rudin and Red Hour Films partner Stuart Cornfeld.
Prior to that Stiller also starred in Jay Roach’s blockbuster Meet the Parents for Universal Pictures. The film, which also stars Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner and Owen Wilson, has grossed over $150 million in the U.S. The film won a People’s Choice Award and earned Stiller an American Comedy Award for Funniest Male Performance. He was also nominated for two MTV Movie Awards for his work in the film: Best Comedic Performance and Best On-Screen Team (with De Niro). Stiller also starred in Wes Anderson’s eccentric comedy The Royal Tenenbaums for Disney, with Gene Hackman, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Stiller made his feature-length motion picture directorial debut in 1994 with Reality Bites, in which he also co-starred with Winona Ryder, Janeane Garofalo and Ethan Hawke. He went on to direct Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick in The Cable Guy for Columbia Pictures.
Other films: In 1998, Stiller appeared in Peter and Bobby Farrelly’s smash hit romantic comedy, There’s Something About Mary, for 20th Century Fox; the film also starred Cameron Diaz and Matt Dillon. He gained critical notice in the feature film Permanent Midnight, directed by David Veloz and based on Jerry Stahl’s controversial Hollywood memoir about being a heroin addict who led a double life while writing for television sitcoms. He also appeared in Neil LaBute’s Your Friends & Neighbors; written and directed by LaBute, the ensemble drama also stars Jason Patric, Nastassja Kinski, Catherine Keener and Aaron Eckhart. He appeared in Jake Kasdan’s Zero Effect with Bill Pullman; the comedy/mystery was selected to take part in the “Un Certain Regard” sidebar of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. He also starred in David O. Russell’s Flirting With Disaster, opposite Patricia Arquette, Téa Leoni, Josh Brolin, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Alan Alda and Lily Tomlin.
Stiller made his professional acting debut on Broadway in 1985 starring opposite John Mahoney in John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves. While appearing in the play, Stiller persuaded Mahoney and fellow cast members Swoosie Kurtz, Stockard Channing and Julie Hagerty to appear in a short comedy film, his first true directorial effort, The Hustler of Money. The short film, a parody of Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money, eventually aired on Saturday Night Live, where it was so well received Stiller was subsequently hired as a featured player and apprentice writer for the NBC comedy series.
Following his stint at Saturday Night Live, Stiller directed a comedy special for MTV called Back to Brooklyn. Stiller followed that project by creating The Ben Stiller Show, also for MTV, and later collaborated with Judd Apatow for a 13-episode run on FOX. A critical success, Stiller, along with the rest of the writing staff, was awarded an Emmy for outstanding comedy writing. Warner Home Video released all 13 episodes on DVD in December, 2003.
Decidedly predisposed to a career in show business, with parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, Stiller is a native of New York City. Stiller studied Theater Arts at UCLA for one year before opting out of college to pursue his acting and directing ambitions professionally.

A two-time Oscar® winner and seven-time nominee, Dustin Hoffman (Bernie Focker) is distinguished as one of the cinema’s most acclaimed leading actors.
Hoffman caught the world’s attention for his role as Benjamin Braddock in Mike Nichol’s Academy Award®-nominated film, The Graduate. Since then, he has been nominated for six more Academy Awards® for such diverse films such as Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, Tootsie (a film he also produced through his company, Punch Productions) and Wag the Dog. Hoffman won the Oscar® in 1979 for his role in Kramer vs. Kramer and again in 1988 for Rain Man.
Hoffman recently starred in David O. Russell’s comedy I Heart Huckabees, with Jude Law, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg, Lily Tomlin and Jason Schwartzman. A husband-and-wife team (Hoffman and Tomlin) play detectives, but not in the traditional sense. Instead, the happy duo helps others solve their existential issues, the kind that keep you up at night, wondering what it all means.
Additionally, he was also seen in Marc Forster’s Finding Neverland, opposite Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet for Miramax Films. Finding Neverland is a tale of magic and fantasy inspired by the life of James Barrie, the real-life author of the children’s classic Peter Pan. Set in London in 1904, the film follows Barrie’s creative journey to bring Peter Pan to life, from his first inspiration for the story up until the play’s life-changing premiere. Finding Neverland premiered at the 2004 Venice Film Festival.
Hoffman will also lend his voice to Frederik Du Chau’s film, Racing Stripes, for Alcon Entertainment and slated for a January 14, 2005 release. Hoffman joins the ensemble cast which includes Frankie Muniz, Mandy Moore, Michael Clarke Duncan, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Harvey, Patrick Stewart, Snoop Dogg and David Spade, among many others. Upcoming projects also include appearances in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, as well as The Lost City with Andy Garcia.
Hoffman recently starred in Gary Fleder’s Runaway Jury, opposite John Cusack, Gene Hackman and Rachel Weisz; James Foley’s Confidence, opposite Edward Burns and Rachel Weisz; and Brad Silberling’s Moonlight Mile, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Susan Sarandon.
His other film credits include: Little Big Man, Straw Dogs, Papillon, All the President’s Men, Marathon Man, Straight Time, Agatha, Ishtar, Dick Tracy, Billy Bathgate, Mad City, Hero, Sleepers, Sphere, American Buffalo, Hook and Outbreak.
On the stage, Hoffman has had an equally impressive career. His first stage role was in the Sarah Lawrence College production of Gertrude Stein’s Yes Is For a Very Young Man. His performance in this play led to several roles off-Broadway, for which he won the Obie and Drama Desk Award for Best Actor. His success onstage caught the attention of Mike Nichols, who cast him in The Graduate. In 1974, Hoffman made his Broadway directorial debut with All Over Town. In 1984, Hoffman garnered a Drama Desk Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Willy Loman in the Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman, which he also produced. In addition to starring in the Broadway production, a special presentation aired on television and Hoffman won the Emmy Award. Additionally, Hoffman received a Tony Award nomination for his role as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, which he reprised from his long run on the London stage.
As a producer, Hoffman produced Tony Goldwyn’s feature film, A Walk on the Moon, starring Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, Liev Schreiber and Anna Paquin for Miramax Films. He executive-produced The Devil’s Arithmetic, which won two Emmy Awards.
Hoffman was born in Los Angeles and attended Santa Monica Community College. He later studied at the Pasadena Playhouse before moving to New York to study with Lee Strasberg.

As film director, producer, writer, actress, singer and composer, Barbra Streisand’s (Roz Focker) career has been paved with bold creative achievements, highlighted by a series of firsts. Prince of Tides was the first motion picture directed by its female star ever to receive a Best Director nomination for the Director’s Guild of America, as well as seven Academy Award® nominations. Her directorial debut film, Yentl, earned her Golden Globe Awards both as Best Director and producer of the Best Picture (musical or comedy).
She earned the New York Drama Critics Award and a Tony nomination with her first Broadway appearance (I Can Get It For You Wholesale) and the Album of the Year Grammy (one of two) for her very first record album (The Barbra Streisand Album). She became the youngest artist ever to have won that at the time. Her first motion picture performance (Funny Girl), following her performance in the hit Broadway musical production, brought her the 1968 Academy Award® for Best Actress, the first of two Oscars®. And with Yentl, she became the first woman ever to produce, direct and star in a major motion picture. At the same time, Steven Spielberg called it the best directing debut since Citizen Kane.
Her first television special (My Name is Barbra) earned her the Emmy Award (one of five for the show) and the distinguished Peabody Award, and she duplicated this with her most recent television specials, Barbra Streisand: The Concert and Timeless, winning three more personal Emmys and another Peabody in the process. The two shows earned nine Emmys.
She is the first female composer ever to win an Academy Award®, this for her song “Evergreen,” the love theme for her hit film, A Star is Born. Her 1994 concert tour was similarly record-setting, registering five million calls in the first hour of ticket sales. Her Millennium New Year’s Eve concert at the MGM Grand Gardens in Las Vegas established the highest one-day single event sale in the history of Ticketmaster and became the highest-grossing concert of all time. Her double album, Timeless, which captured that production, quickly was confirmed both Gold and Platinum, while her adaptation of the production for the four concerts in Los Angeles and New York 2000 Tour, with which the star concluded her live public concert career, was similarly a record-setting success. Her 2001 release Christmas Memories was certified gold and platinum in its first month.
Recipient in 1995 of an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Brandeis University, Barbra Streisand is a rare honoree, the only artist to earn Oscar®, Tony, Emmy, Golden Globe, CableACE, Peabody Award and the American Film Institutes Lifetime Achievement honor. She is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Arts Award and has been honored by France as a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. Barbra also received a number of major honors saluting her social and political activism and her dedicated philanthropy. Her total of 10 Golden Globe Awards, prior to being voted the year 2000’s Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement, is the most accorded any artist.
Barbra Streisand’s popularity has endured for nearly four decades. According to the Recording Industry Association of America her total gold and platinum albums (her most recent release, The Movie Album, quickly became her 49th gold and 30th platinum album) makes her the highest selling female recording artist ever, with number one albums in each of the last four decades, and number one albums spanning a period of over 35 years, the greatest longevity in that statistic for any recording artist or group. Her 13 multi-platinum albums, accredited by the RIAA, are similarly record-setting.
A recent national poll by the Reuters News Agency named her and Frank Sinatra the favorite female and male singers of the century, and the Recording Industry Association of America confirmed her as the leading female recording artist of the 20th century.
Her Barwood Films, through which she has created such films as Yentl, The Prince Tides, The Mirror Has Two Faces (all of which she directed and starred in), A Star Is Born, Nuts and Up the Sandbox, has helped to bring significant and largely ignored subject matter to both the big and small screens. On television, these include the multiple Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, which dealt with the civil rights of gays, and other shows exploring the imperatives of gun control (The Long Island Incident: The Caroline McCarthy Story) and the celebration of women film pioneers in the Emmy-winning documentary, Reel Women. Serving in Silence was acknowledged by gay and lesbian civil rights groups for its bold revelation and protest of discrimination in the military.
Much of the star’s energy and resources are channeled into charity through the Streisand Foundation, which has directed millions of dollars to such concerns as the environment, the plight of at-risk women and children, civil rights including gay rights, research and assistance addressing such diseases as AIDS and cancer and ameliorating relations between religious and ethnic groups. Her political activism has been similarly notable, raising funds and awareness for urgent civil rights and humanitarian issues. From her early days supporting Bella Abzug and George McGovern to her current civil liberties and environmental advocacy, Barbra Streisand has been an active participant in supporting Democrats and progressive causes.
Her taste and talent as a collector of art, furniture and artifacts and as a creator of distinctive living environments is well acknowledged by leading publications in those fields of interest.
She is married to actor/director James Brolin.

Blythe Danner (Dina Byrnes) has had a diverse and distinguished career in film, television and theater. Among her many film credits are: The Prince of Tides, directed by Barbra Streisand; three Woody Allen films, including Husbands and Wives, Alice and Another Woman; Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs; The Great Santini, opposite Robert Duvall; Costa Gavras’ Mad City, with John Travolta and Dustin Hoffman; The X Files; Edward Burns’ No Looking Back; Farmhouse; To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar; The Myth of Fingerprints; and Jay Roach’s Meet the Parents.
In the spring of 1999 she co-starred in Forces of Nature with Sandra Bullock and The Love Letter with Kate Capshaw. In 2003, Danner portrayed Aurelia Plath, mother of the poet Sylvia Plath, in the film Sylvia, opposite her daughter, Gwyenth Paltrow, as Sylvia.
On television, Danner starred in such movies as: HBO’s Judgment, for which she received a CableACE Award nomination; A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story; Too Far to Go; Saint Maybe; and Guilty Conscience with Anthony Hopkins. She can be seen in a recurring role as Marilyn Truman, Will’s mother, in the popular sitcom Will & Grace, as well as in the Showtime series Huff, opposite Hank Azaria. In 1999 Danner was nominated for a CableACE Award for A Call to Remember with Joe Mantegna and she received an Emmy nomination for her role in 2003’s We Were the Mulvaneys, a telefilm based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates. She has starred in two network series, Adam’s Rib and Tattinger’s, and has had numerous guest-starring roles on such shows as M*A*S*H and St. Elsewhere.
Her theater resume is as extensive as it is impressive. She received a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in Butterflies Are Free and Tony nominations for roles in A Streetcar Named Desire and Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. Other Broadway credits include The Philadelphia Story, Blithe Spirit and the Roundabout Theater production of Deep Blue Sea. Danner has been a member of the Williamstown Theater Festival for over 20 years and also appeared at other leading venues such as the Theater Company of Boston, Trinity Square Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Repertory Company of Lincoln Center in New York and the New York Shakespeare Festival. Many of her roles have been in the classics, ranging from Shakespeare to Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw and Tennessee Williams.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Danner holds a drama degree from Bard College in New York and honorary Doctorate degrees of fine arts from Williams College and Hobart/William Smith Colleges.

A talented actress with beauty to match, Teri Polo (Pam Byrnes) is now firmly established as a presence in motion pictures and television.
Following her portrayal of Pam in 2000’s Meet the Parents, Polo toplined in the movies Domestic Disturbance, opposite John Travolta and Vince Vaughn, and Beyond Borders, opposite Angelina Jolie and Clive Davis; she also starred in the telefilms The Unsaid with Andy Garcia and Second String with Jon Voight.
She also headlined the ABC-TV sitcom I’m With Her as Alex Young, a movie star who falls in love with a schoolteacher. Polo has had recurring roles on the series Felicity, as Maggie, a catering service owner; the sitcom Sports Night; and the long-running series The Practice.
Originally from Dover, Delaware, Polo began her performing career as a dancer. By the age of 13 she was attending New York’s School of American Ballet. The summer before her senior year she was signed to a modeling contract, which led to a role as Kristen on the ABC daytime drama Loving. She made her primetime debut in the dramatic series TV 101. Television audiences will remember her as Michelle Capra, the doctor’s wife who was determined to master the strange surroundings (and even stranger characters) of Cicely, Alaska, in Northern Exposure.
Polo’s other credits include leading roles in the feature films Born to Ride, with John Stamos; Mystery Date, opposite Ethan Hawke; Aspen Extreme, with Peter Berg; Golden Gate, opposite Matt Dillon; and The House of the Spirits, alongside Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons.


ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS…
Filmmaker Jay Roach (Director / Producer) has garnered a reputation as one of Hollywood’s producer/directors with a magic comedic touch, having helmed a string of very funny and successful hits. Roach marked his directorial debut with the 1997 box office hit Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, starring Mike Myers, following that with the blockbuster sequels Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember, with Myers twice reprising his role as the titular swinging spy. In between the second and third Austin Powers movies, Roach directed and produced the original worldwide success Meet the Parents, which went on to gross more than $300 million globally. Prior to Parents, he also directed the wry and touching Mystery, Alaska, written by David E. Kelly & Sean O’Byrne and starring an ensemble cast toplined by Russell Crowe.
A graduate of Stanford University, Roach received his Master’s degree in film production from the University of Southern California. While at USC, his short subject film Asleep at the Wheel was nominated for a student academy award.
Roach is President of Everyman Pictures, which is currently in post-production on the big screen adaptation of Douglas Adams’ popular The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with Roach serving as producer. He served as executive producer on the Adam Sandler-Drew Barrrymore hit 50 First Dates. Roach also served as associate producer and wrote the story for the action-thriller Blown Away, starring Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones. Additional credits include producing the provocative feature film The Empty Mirror and executive-producing the political reality series American Candidate. Future projects include producing and directing the features Elling, Used Guys and Saints and Sinners.

One of the screenwriters of Meet the Parents, Jim Herzfeld (Story by / Screenplay by) is a graduate of UCLA’s Film School and has been a working screenwriter since 1987, when he co-wrote the Tim Robbins-John Cusack cult comedy Tapeheads. Since then, Herzfeld has worked as a writer and producer on such prime time television sitcoms as It's Garry Shandling's Show, Doctor Doctor and Married...With Children, while continuing to write, develop and rewrite numerous feature film projects. His additional credits include the feature film Meet the Deedles and the teleplay for The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story. At present Herzfeld is writing Toy Story III for Disney and a remake of the MGM classic The Party, which Jay Roach will direct for DreamWorks.

Marc Hyman (Story by) most recently co-wrote the story and the screenplay of Paramount Pictures’ teen heist, The Perfect Score, which followed a group of high school seniors out to break into the Princeton Testing Center and lift the answers to their upcoming SATs. Hyman previously wrote the Farrelly brothers’ off-kilter mix of live-action and animation, Osmosis Jones, for which he was nominated for an Annie Award in 2001. This imaginative romp, featuring Chris Rock and David Hyde Pierce voicing the roles of a white blood cell cop and a cold tablet, along with Laurence Fishburne as the evil Thrax, spawned the TV series Ozzy & Drix, for which Hyman also wrote.
Hyman also brought his screenwriting skills to Kangaroo Jack for Jerry Bruckheimer, The Incredible Mr. Limpet for Jim Carrey, as well as the features Rock Star, Showtime and Bubble Boy, to name a few.

Born and raised in New York City, John Hamburg (Screenplay by) began making short films while in high school. He continued creating films while attending Brown University, where he also studied playwriting, and later, at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. While at Tisch, he wrote and directed the short film Tick, which debuted at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival.
In 1998, he returned to Sundance with his feature-length debut, Safe Men, a comedy which he wrote and directed. Starring Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn, Paul Giamatti, Mark Ruffalo and Harvey Fierstein, Hamburg’s film about safe-crackers and song-writers in Providence, Rhode Island, has garnered a strong cult following in the years since its Sundance premiere.
He next co-wrote the screenplays for Meet the Parents and Zoolander, in addition to directing several episodes of the critically acclaimed television series Undeclared.
Most recently, Hamburg wrote and directed the Universal Pictures international hit Along Came Polly.

Jane Rosenthal (Producer) co-founded Tribeca Productions and the Tribeca Film Center with Robert De Niro in 1988. She oversees all aspects of project development and serves as producer with De Niro.
Tribeca’s current projects include: Meet the Fockers with Universal, the follow-up to Meet the Parents, which re-teams De Niro and Ben Stiller; Stage Beauty, starring Billy Crudup and Claire Danes, directed by Sir Richard Eyre; and House of D, David Duchovny’s directorial debut, which stars Duchovny and Robin Williams (slated for March 2005). Upcoming projects include: The Good Shepherd with Universal, which De Niro will direct with Leonardo DiCaprio starring; and the screen adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s Rent, directed by Chris Columbus.
Tribeca’s previous film productions include About a Boy (2002); Analyze That (2002); Showtime (2002); Meet the Parents (2000); The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000); Analyze This (1999); Flawless (1999); the Academy Award®-nominated Wag the Dog (1997); Marvin’s Room (1996); De Niro’s directorial debut, A Bronx Tale (1993); The Night We Never Met (1993); Thunderheart (1992); Mistress (1992); and Night and the City (1992).
In May 2002, Rosenthal and De Niro launched the first annual Tribeca Film Festival to contribute to the cultural and economic recovery of Lower Manhattan after the tragedy of September 11, 2001. They went on to produce three film festivals in 24 months. The first Festival attracted over 150,000 visitors to the downtown neighborhood for screenings of 155 films, as well as panel discussions and a free family festival. The Festival has continued the tradition of free public events each year, including an annual concert and the popular “Drive-In” movies at Pier 25. Over 400,000 people attended the third Tribeca Film Festival in May 2004, where 250 films were screened, 55 of which were world premieres. In October 2004, Rosenthal and De Niro launched the Tribeca Theater Festival, in association with the award-winning theater collective Drama Dept., in order to continue revitalizing downtown Manhattan through the arts.
Rosenthal and De Niro are co-producers of the theatrical musical We Will Rock You, based on the music of Queen with book by Ben Elton. The show has been running in London’s West End since May 2002 and has productions in Australia, Spain and Las Vegas; it will open next in Moscow, Germany and Toronto, followed by a US tour.
Prior to founding Tribeca, Rosenthal was an executive at CBS-TV and The Walt Disney Company. She is a board member of New York City Outward Bound, NYU Child Study Center, and the American Museum of the Moving Image, as well as serving on the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Dean’s Council.
Rosenthal lives in New York City with her husband Craig Hatkoff and two daughters.

Amy Sayres (Executive Producer) began her career in New York working in feature film locations, then served as assistant director on such films as Mad Dog and Glory, I Married an Axe Murderer, Six Degrees of Separation, The Juror, Wag the Dog and (all for director Martin Brest) Meet Joe Black and Scent of a Woman, also serving as associate producer for Gigli.
She has a long-standing involvement with several of the cast of Meet the Fockers, having co-produced Meet the Parents and served as assistant director for Barbra Streisand on The Mirror Has Two Faces and on Ben Stiller’s Zoolander.
After her work on Wag the Dog, Sayres was recruited by the movie’s producers, Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, to become the vice president of production at their Tribeca Productions, a post she held from December 1997 through August 1999. While at Tribeca, she co-produced Flawless. Following her tenure there, she co-produced Meet the Parents and Secondhand Lions and executive-produced Meet the Fockers.

John Schwartzman, A.S.C. (Director of Photography) most recently shot the award-winning hit Seabiscuit, for which he received an Academy Award® nomination and won the ASC Award. In 2003 he shot the well-received The Rookie, starring Dennis Quaid and Rachel Griffiths. Prior to that he served as cinematographer for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and producer/director Michael Bay on Pearl Harbor (ASC Award nominated), Armageddon and The Rock.
He has also worked with director Ron Howard on Imagine Entertainment’s Ed TV. His other feature film credits include Mr. Wrong, A Pyromaniac’s Love Story, Airheads, Benny & Joon and You Can’t Hurry Love.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Schwartzman completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California Film School and then spent a year as Vittorio Storaro’s apprentice on Tucker: The Man and His Dream. After photographing a few smaller features, he began working on television commercials through Propaganda Films.
In addition to shooting feature films, Schwartzman directs television commercials through Ridley Scott’s production company RSA-USA. He has also filmed numerous music videos, working with such stars as Madonna and Paula Abdul.

Rusty Smith (Production Designer) began his career in the theater, designing the Broadway and off-Broadway productions of Blood Knot by Athol Fugard and The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry. One of Smith’s first credits as a feature film production designer was One Night Stand, starring Ally Sheedy, produced by Roger Corman and directed by Talia Shire.
Subsequent features include the comedies Camp Nowhere, starring Christopher Lloyd and M. Emmet Walsh; Dunston Checks In; Serving Sara; The Beautician and the Beast; the HBO film 61*; Agent Cody Banks; the box office hit Elf; and, for director Jay Roach, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Meet the Parents, Austin Powers in Goldmember and Mystery, Alaska.

Jon Poll (Editor / Co-Producer) has enjoyed a long relationship with director Jay Roach, having also edited Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Mystery, Alaska and Meet the Parents. His other feature film editing credits include Scary Movie 3, Death to Smoochy, Monkeybone, Krippendorf’s Tribe, The Beautician and the Beast, Dunston Checks In, Forever Young, Weeds and Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken. Poll also served as an additional editor on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
He was also producer and supervising editor for the television series Eerie, Indiana and received a CableACE Award nomination for the HBO film Steal the Sky.

Lee Haxall (Editor) has worked extensively in television, serving as editor on a number of popular series and telefilms. His work can be seen in Fox’s/Imagine Entertainment’s Emmy-winning Arrested Development and in the recent made-for-television movie National Lampoon’s Thanksgiving Family Reunion. Additional series editing credits include Hack, My Guide to Becoming a Rock Star, The Shield, Beggars and Choosers, Hyperion Bay, Gun, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Arli$$ and Strange Luck. Telefilm editing credits include The Poof Point, Hounded, Brink! and Prey. He also served as co-producer of the cult television series Eerie, Indiana.

Carol Ramsey (Costume Designer) designed the costumes for Fox Searchlight’s Le Divorce, her sixth collaboration with director James Ivory, having previously worked on Merchant Ivory’s A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, Surviving Picasso, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge and Slaves of New York. Ramsey has designed costumes for more than 20 films including Dodgeball, Jungle 2 Jungle and The Santa Clause.
Her other feature film credits include: Scary Movie 3, Bad Boys 2 (shared credit), Tuck Everlasting, Ready to Rumble, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, King of New York, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead and Sunset Park. Her additional credits include Foreign Student, Crossing the Bridge, That Night and The Opposite Sex and How to Live With Them. Ramsey has worked extensively in television and was nominated for a Costume Designer’s Guild Award for Excellence in Costume Design for Television - Period/Fantasy for her work on the miniseries Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.
She was an assistant designer for The Boston Shakespeare Company for two seasons. Ramsey also designed the wardrobe for Ivory’s Rivers Music School Festival production of Cinderella, the children’s opera by composer Peter Maxwell Davies.

Prolific, Oscar®-winning composer Randy Newman (Composer) took home the statuette for his original song, “If I Didn’t Have You,” from the smash animated hit Monsters, Inc., for which he also received an additional nomination for Best Original Score, bringing his superlative career total to 16 Academy Award® nominations (with one win). His most recent score for the multiple Oscar®-nominated Seabiscuit garnered Newman a Grammy nomination for Best Score Soundtrack Album and won him his seventh ASCAP award.
Newman has chronicled life in America in the late 20th Century perhaps more than any other contemporary songwriter, yet he has proven to be more than merely the consummate musical storyteller of the rock era. In addition to his Oscar®, Grammy and Emmy award-winning work, he also composed the critically acclaimed theatrical musical Faust.
Born into a prestigious musical family in Los Angeles, Newman became an accomplished pianist and began writing and recording songs as a teenager, eventually becoming a staff songwriter for Metric Music and penning a number of chart hits for such acts as The Fleetwoods, Cilla Black, Judy Collins, Manfred Mann and Jackie DeShannon. He was signed by Reprise Records in 1967, and his self-titled debut album was released the following year. His first Grammy nomination came in 1969, and hit albums and awards continued to follow (including the #2 Billboard hit “Short People” in 1977 and the anthemic “I Love L.A.” in 1983).
Newman’s scoring breakthrough was 1982’s soundtrack to the feature Ragtime, securing the composer both a Grammy and two Oscar® nominations (for score and song, “One More Hour”). His score for 1984’s The Natural garnered him a Grammy and another Academy Award® nod. In addition to composing songs for Three Amigos, he also earned a screenplay credit alongside Steve Martin and Lorne Michaels.
More award-winning scores and songs followed: Parenthood (score and Oscar®-nominated song, “I Love to See You Smile”); Awakenings (score); Avalon (Oscar®-nominated score); NBC’s Cop Rock (Emmy-winning song, “He’s Guilty”); The Paper (Oscar®-nominated song, “Make Up Your Mind”); Maverick (Oscar®-nominated score); Michael (score); Toy Story (Oscar® nods for both score and song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”); James and the Giant Peach (Oscar®-nominated score); and Cats Don’t Dance (songs).
In 1999, Newman made Oscar® history by receiving three nominations for his work on three different films: Gary Ross’ Pleasantville (Best Original Dramatic Score); A Bug’s Life (Best Original Comedy Score); and Babe: Pig in the City (Best Original Song, “That’ll Do”). The same year, a four-CD boxed set spanning his prodigious career, Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman, was issued to critical and popular acclaim. Two more Academy Award® nominations followed: for his song “When She Loved Me,” from Toy Story 2; and for the song “A Fool in Love,” from Meet the Parents.
In 1995, Newman’s long-awaited musical based on Faust premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and the soundtrack album, Randy Newman’s Faust, was released; the album features performances by James Taylor, Don Henley, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt and Newman himself. The musical’s opening at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 1996 prompted Time magazine to name Faust one of the Top 10 theatrical events of the year.
Newman is also the recipient of the first Henry Mancini Award for Lifetime Achievement in film composing from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
His work will next be heard in the Disney animated film Cars, directed by John Lasseter (Toy Story and its sequel and A Bug’s Life).