Why is Barbra Streisand not in Focker In-Law? It isn't her schedule and it isn't her health
Roz Focker was the best reason to watch the 2004 sequel, so when the fourth movie came together without her, people assumed scheduling or retirement. Streisand had already given the real reason, on a podcast, in one sentence.
Focker-in-Law opens on November 25 with Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, Blythe Danner and Owen Wilson back, and Ariana Grande joining as Greg's future daughter-in-law. Streisand and Dustin Hoffman, who played Greg's parents in Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers, aren't on Universal's official cast list, and neither has been announced.
Streisand explained why more than a year before release. In June 2025, she went on Variety's Just for Variety podcast with Marc Malkin to promote her duets album The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two, which features Grande.
The interview
Malkin told her Grande had been cast in the new Meet the Parents movie and asked if we'd see Roz again. Streisand first thought he meant Grande was taking over as Roz, called that "very funny," and then answered the real question.
"They'd have to pay me a lot of money."
— Barbra Streisand, to Variety
She went on to say she didn't get paid what the other actors got, that she was still angry about it, and that she'd worked "in the time when women were getting paid less than the men." She added one generous footnote: Ron Meyer, Universal's chief at the time, sent her a bonus check, which she called "very sweet."
What the gap reportedly looked like
Streisand didn't give numbers, and she'd already raised the pay issue in her 2023 memoir My Name Is Barbra without them, People noted. The only figures out there come from a 2011 Page Six report on Little Fockers, which the studio never confirmed:
- Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro: $20 million each
- Owen Wilson: $15 million
- Dustin Hoffman: $7.5 million
- Barbra Streisand: $7 million
If those numbers are close, the actress whose casting sold the 2004 sequel made the least of the five on the 2010 one.
Stiller's "in process"
The door didn't close right away. At the Emmys in September 2025, with Focker-in-Law about a month into shooting, E! News asked Stiller whether Streisand was coming back. His wife, Christine Taylor, answered first that it was "a very popular question."
"We all would love it. We're in process."
— Ben Stiller, via Entertainment Weekly
That was the last public update, and no return has been announced since. Universal could still be hiding a cameo, but as of premiere week it isn't promising one.
It isn't the schedule, and it isn't her health
Streisand, 84, hasn't announced anything about her health, and she was working all through this period: the duets album, and a multi-part documentary about her life that Frank Marshall is directing. She did admit in the same Variety interview that she doesn't love signing up for things.
"I'm very lazy. I don't like to have to work."
— Barbra Streisand, to Variety
That's a preference, not a scheduling conflict, and she said it about work in general. The one condition she named for Roz was money.
Our read
Streisand didn't storm off the franchise. She named a price for coming back, out loud, on a promo tour for a record that has the new movie's star on it. Unless Focker-in-Law has a surprise on November 25, the studio decided Roz wasn't worth it, and the movie about two families sizing each other up will do it without the one Focker who never needed a lie detector to win the room.
Previously we wrote: What happened to Pam in Focker-in-Law? Teri Polo walked the premiere and fans didn't recognize her