{"id":1511897,"date":"2026-06-02T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?guid=efe62a1551861d0345b198dcc4032045"},"modified":"2026-06-02T11:33:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T16:33:26","slug":"robert-de-niro-praises-ariana-grandes-focker-in-law-performance-very-professional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1511897","title":{"rendered":"Robert De Niro praises Ariana Grande&#8217;s &#8216;Focker-In-Law&#8217; performance: &#8216;Very professional&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img src=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/06\/248639c00e92d6401700e33ed0ca9dfd.jpg\" alt\/><figcaption>'Focker-In-Law' poster (Universal Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Robert De Niro enjoyed working with Ariana Grande on their upcoming comedy <em>Focker-In-Law<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014 but he has yet to see her in <em>Wicked,<\/em> the movie that earned her an Oscar nomination.<\/p><p>Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/robert-de-niro-hasnt-seen-focker-in-law-costar-ariana-grande-wicked-11984335\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Entertainment Weekly<\/em><\/a>, the legendary actor said, \"I didn't see her movie, and I still am trying to see it, believe it or not, but I want to see it. I'm going to see it with my daughter. And she's, of course, seen it.\"<\/p><p>Despite missing <em>Wicked<\/em>, De Niro tells <em>EW<\/em> he was aware of Ariana because&nbsp;\"I had seen her in some stuff with my daughter, some sitcom thing she had done. I'm forgetting the name. My kid was into that. I was aware of her then and, of course, aware of her in other ways. She was great.\"<\/p><p>De Niro was likely referring to one of Ariana's Nickelodeon shows,&nbsp;<em>Victorious<\/em> or<em> Sam &amp; Cat.<\/em><\/p><p>The actor, who's 82, praised Ari's work in <em>Focker-In-Law<\/em> as Olivia, the girlfriend of Henry Focker, who's the grandson of De Niro's character, Jack.<\/p><p class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\" id=\"mntl-sc-block_17-0\">\"She was very professional,\" he says. \"She's terrific and very quick and got it all. She was very much part of the whole process.\"<\/p><p class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\">\"I liked her. Nice kid.\"<\/p><p class=\"comp mntl-sc-block mntl-sc-block-html\"><em>Focker-In-Law<\/em> is in theaters Nov. 25.<\/p><p>Copyright \u00a9 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Focker-In-Law&#8217; poster (Universal Pictures)Robert De Niro enjoyed working with Ariana Grande on their upcoming comedy Focker-In-Law&nbsp;\u2014 but he has yet to see her in Wicked, the movie that earned her an Oscar nomination.Speaking to Entertainment Week&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":1511900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/06\/248639c00e92d6401700e33ed0ca9dfd.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1451],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-entertainment-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-05 21:20:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/06\/248639c00e92d6401700e33ed0ca9dfd.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1511897"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1511901,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511897\/revisions\/1511901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1511900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1511897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1511897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1511897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}