The way we are

True talent thrives in its natural state. Just ask Barbra Streisand and Robert De Niro.

Neither appears to be making the sort of superhuman efforts to hold back the years which many celebrities see as obligatory these days.

As our pictures show, the way they are is somewhat different to the way they were.

Streisand, 62, and De Niro, 61, are teaming up in a sequel to his hit comedy Meet The Parents.

And as they enjoyed their leisure time ahead of its release, they certainly looked the part.

De Niro allowed his waistline to expand over the top of a pair of beach shorts as he holidayed on a boat off Sardinia.

Streisand blended into the background as she arrived in a drab and colourless outfit for an evening at the cinema with her brother Sheldon Jay in Malibu, California.

Miss Streisand is returning to the screen after a gap of eight years to appear in the movie, called Meet the Fockers. De Niro will reprise his successful role as a deranged father who is so over-protective o f his daughter that he embarks on a vendetta against his prospective son-in-law, played by Ben Stiller.

The sequel is set in Stiller's house, where Streisand is introduced as his eccentric mother and Dustin Hoffman plays his father.

De Niro has shown before that he is capable of shedding weight, most notably when he had to regain his shape after piling on the pounds for his part in Raging Bull in 1980.

The boxing classic won De Niro one of his two Oscars, the other coming for The Godfather Part II.

Streisand, meanwhile, won Academy Awards for Funny Girl and A Star Is Born.

She received a nomination for her acting in the 1973 love story The Way We Were in which she starred opposite Robert Redford.