Screenwriter Dan Fogelman has found an unlikely best friend in Barbra Streisand after casting her in The Guilt Trip - he speaks to her "almost every day" and is a regular dinner guest at the superstar's California home.

The Crazy, Stupid, Love scribe spent months trying to convince Streisand she was the perfect person to play Seth Rogen's mum in the comedy, and when she finally agreed, he was overjoyed.

Fogelman has since formed a close bond with the Funny Girl icon and now has the 70-year-old on speed dial - and he's pleasantly surprised at how down to earth she is.

He tells Wenn, "I speak to her almost every day. It's gotten normal to have dinner at Barbra's house which is about the strangest thing you could say.

"It (her house) is gorgeous and off the charts. It's not over the top. It's unbelievably stunning with a rose garden and this gorgeous barn with a pond and it's right over the ocean. There's coffee table books about her house. She's got a great passion for design. She is the most normal person. She doesn't go out to eat and she watches every film; there's not a film that comes out in the course of the year that misses Barbra. She loves having people over and talking and having good food. She's really very bizarrely normal."