NEW YORK – It's time to "Meet the Fockers" (search) — again.
The new DVD out Tuesday is packed with 65 bloopers and a version of the movie extended 15 minutes. Why so much extra footage? Director Jay Roach (search) says method acting gone awry is to blame.
"We were in these characters and they're having fun IN character and not picking on each other as actors," Roach told The Associated Press.
"Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) really is goosing Roz (Barbra Streisand (search)) off-camera and being inappropriate with Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) about his sex life with Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo). They're really doing it in character and it's literally a kind of extended life of these characters."
The result is hundreds of yards of film showing Hoffman as Stiller's cursing father or Stiller baiting future father-in-law Robert DeNiro off-screen.
Roach says that the cast's loose improvisational approach was unique — especially considering DeNiro and Hoffman usually have a more serious responsibility while acting.
"They got a chance to play in a way that they don't often get, I suspect, when they're carrying the burden of being stars in their own films. They went into a kind of ensemble mode."
DeNiro's more recent comedic work has been well documented, but watching his tough-guy image crack remains a favorite experience.
"Watching DeNiro try not crack up is one of the funniest things," Roach says.
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