Mike Myers

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

He's been a public-access TV host from Aurora. He's been a British secret agent with swinging 1960's flair and fashion sense and some really bad teeth.

He's even been an easily irritated, boorish green ogre with an unusually Scottish accent. And it is Mike Myers and only Mike Myers that has been the giver of life to each of these highly distinctive characters.

He emerged in the world of comedy as one of the most popular cast members of Saturday Night Live, creating such memorable, distinct characters as Sprockets and Linda Richman. Mike soon parlayed one of his SNL characters, Wayne Campbell into the highly successful Wayne's World movies in the early 1990's.

But Myers's career really took off with the successes of the title character in both the Austin Powers and Shrek movies. A man known for creating such memorable characters and gags, the now 45-year old Toronto native hopes to continue making his distinct comedic mark, giving life to his newest character, Indian love guru Pitka in the new comedy The Love Guru.

However, as much as most people know him for his many characters, very few people know the man behind them all. It's been built on a career that Myers says all started with a simple crush he had on one of SNL's founding alumni.

'When I was 10, Gilda Radner played my mom in a TV commercial,' Mike recalls, 'And then, when I was 11, I cried at the end of the commercial and my brothers were like, (in Wayne-Campbell-like voice) 'Hey, Sucky Baby!' They called me 'Sucky Baby' because I cry, because I fell in love with Gilda Radner.'

'And then, about a year later, they said, 'Hey, Sucky Baby, you girlfriend's on the stupid show. It's on Saturday. It doesn't even have a name.'' he continues. 'It was Saturday Night Live. I saw it and went, 'One day, I will be on that show alright.' Fourteen years later, I was.'

His simple love for the late actress, Mike says, ultimately would plant a seed for what has been for the comic a life's dream come true.

'I wanted to create, write, produce, and act in comedies since I can remember and it's been an embarrassment of riches,' he says, 'This has gone a jillion, gajillion times better than I ever thought it would go. I can't even say it's a dream come true because I didn't even dare to dream this big, so it's just been an amazing experience.'

An experience, he says, as with his previous character Austin Powers stemmed from what he says has been channeling his real-life personal tragedy into a kind of cathartic comic gold.

'When my father passed away in 1991, two things emerged, one is Austin Powers, which is a tribute to my British father and his love of British comedy,' he notes, 'And the other is the guru Pitka, which is kind of dealing with this horrendously painful experience. I loved my father. He was this Liverpoolean who was sharp as a tack, super-funny, died of Alzheimer's, and watched him die.' 'It was awful and I had a what's-it-all-about Alfie and I began to read voraciously.'

'I began to read things of a philosophical nature,' Myers adds, 'My friends would ask me what am I reading and I would say, (in guru voice) 'Intimacy is into-me-I-see and the only way out is in. Three types of love, love without knowledge, knowledge without love, and ultimately love with knowledge and that is the stage of grace.' And they would go, 'Oh, wow, that's great, I'm depressed, can you call me'' I would call them and I would say to them, 'You're a beautiful spirit. This cold will pass and you will one day be vital and happy.' And they'd go, 'Thank you, I feel better.' In 1994, I did a stage show, five characters, debuted for the first time Austin Powers and the guru Pitka. It's been circling the airport ever since and I did Austin first.'

This stage show, Myers indicates, is the stepping stone he used, as with all his characters, to painstakingly perfect and polish them.

'I workshopped with every character. I workshopped with Wayne's World, Austin Powers, Dr. Evil, and I workshopped with this character,' Mike says, ''When I first did [Pitka], he was thirty years older and as I was doing the character, I gave him more and more vitality and just made him younger and younger, the process of change.'

'I'm an artist,' he adds, 'Things mold, they change. With Austin Powers, he had jet-black hair, really big glasses, really horrible teeth, and he was really amped all the time, like, (in English accent) 'Hey, how's it going, baby, yeah!' And I was thinking at the time, he's got to have sad moments, man, or people would lose their mind. And that transformed, Wayne transformed, everything transforms over time, that's the process. If it didn't transform, it would be crazy.'

Mike also says that it was not only the loving support of his parents and his love of international cultures that inspires the level of creativity and detail that he brings to not just Pitka, but all his colorful characters.

'Well, my heroes are Peter Sellers and Woody Allen and it's making things,' he recalls, 'I grew up in a great house. My parents weren't in the type of house when they were like (in English accent) 'Well, why don't you get a bloody real job'' My parents were like, 'Why would you want to do anything else' You should be an actor'', which is the opposite of most people. It's like, 'I want to be an architect,' (in Scottish accent) 'Don't be a bloody architect. Be an actor, for God's sakes!' And I feel very fortunate I was encouraged at such a young age. You know, I did Wayne Campbell onstage in Toronto for a couple of years.'

'I got to Saturday Night Live,' Mike continues, 'I didn't call it The Wayne Show, I called it Wayne's World. I like to create the world around my characters. Steven Spielberg calls it 'creating an immaculate universe.' I love worlds. Whenever I go to England as a kid, I was blown away. I was like, 'That's a telephone, but it's different. And those are products, like a can of peas, but it's different. The buses are different.' The richness of being transported to another world is fascinating to me and I love how people talk and I like to add culture. I'm not I'm a person that wants to exclude. I'm a culture vulture. I eat this stuff up.'

The actor says he was particularly a culture vulture when it came to making the character of Pitka in The Love Guru aesthetically authentic.

'I went to several ashrams, but mostly, when I did, I opened my consciousness to ideas from around the world,' Myers says, 'I read everything that Kurt Vonnegut wrote, for example. I read Seeds Of The Soul by Gary Zukov, I read The Golden Bow, I read Carl Young, I read the Buddha Dharma. I read everything to form the basis of my own mythical belief system like the Force in Star Wars because I wanted to have a very silly delivery system for some very beautiful thoughts.'

However, this particular character has endured harsh criticism from the Hindu community, claiming Pitka is a black eye on Indian culture and the Hindu religion at large. However, Mike is adamant that the character is not intended to be a literal depiction of the Hindu faith.

'The belief system, the teachings in The Love Guru are completely made up,' he insists, 'They are fictional in the way that the Force, in Star Wars, they created the Force. There is no country Fredonia, in The Marx Brothers, Tomania, the dictatorship, great dictator or bacteria. It's a long tradition of making mythical things. It's made-up, dude, when you see the picture, you'll see that it's made up in mythical fashion and it's all about drama. It's made up.'

Mike is so devoted to each of his characters that he claims doesn't just play the character, he literally becomes the character on set, a process the actor says he enjoys most about filming.

'I stay in character all day,' Myers claims, 'I always have from the beginning of my career, because the movie process is 'hurry up and wait'. You don't know when you're going to be on camera. I try to predict, but you really can't. The sun's going down, it's starting to rain, stuff happens, you know.'

'In the process, you have to be adaptive and prepared and I love it because I get to have to be happy,' he adds, 'I get to have to be calm. I get to have to be (in Pitka voice) 'to this place of happiness and spirituality. I stay in character all day and talk to people and offer them advice.' And it's relaxing and beautiful and I love my job. It's sophisticated pretense.'

Equally as talented in this film are his many co-stars, which include Jessica Alba, Austin Powers stalwart Verne Troyer, as well as Justin Timberlake, who previously co-starred with Myers in last year's Shrek The Third.

'I met Justin Timberlake many years ago promoting Shrek,' he recalls, 'He was at a party and I went, 'Hey! There's Justin Timberlake. He seems like a nice dude.' And I went over there, he's hilarious. I did comedy bits with him for like two to four hours. Everyone had gone home and it was just me and him doing comedy bits. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and people were like, 'Go home! Go to sleep!' And I went, 'Wow! I'd love to work with this guy. He's really funny.'

'Jeffrey Katzenberg called me up and said, 'Good news. Justin Timberlake's in Shrek The Third,'' Mike continues, 'This is awesome, but unfortunately, you don't record with the actors, so I really didn't get to work with him. I've had it in the back of my head to write something to have him be in for years and I got to in this.'

The character in mind for Timberlake in The Love Guru proves to be yet another potential addition to the basic Myers staple for memorable characters, larger-than-life, more than a little eccentric, and most tellingly, a rather suggestive name and undertone.

'He wears a Speedo in the movie,' he explains, 'His name is Jacques 'La Coq' Grande. He's a French Canadian player for the Los Angeles Kings. He's the most well-endowed hockey player in the NHL and there's a lot of special effects involved'to make him smaller. Thank you very much, goodnight, that's my joke.'

'Everything he does is great,' Myers continues, 'It's a little sickening. He's the most talented human being I've ever met in my life. He never skated before. He has a goalie stance like Tony Espo, thoroughly, thoroughly authentic. He had never done French Canadian and by the end, he talked like this (does French Canadian accent) 'You know, my brother, my other brother, you know.' And I'm from Canada, so you're issued a French Canadian accent. He is so talented.'

However, Mike is more reserved and humble when it comes to his incredible luck with leading ladies in his comedies, as with Jessica Alba in this film.

'It's an embarrassment of riches,' Myers says, 'I mean Elizabeth Hurley, Heather Graham, and now Jessica Alba. I will not go against the tradition of having funny movies with beautiful girls in them. They're all funny. Elizabeth Hurley, she is a joy. Heather Graham is silly, fun, loves to play, and Jessica Alba just knocked it out of the park. You know, it's a pinch-me moment.'

Myers is equally humble when asked about whether or not he is ultimately pleased with his newly long-gestating character creation in the finished film.

'I love this movie, it's the most fun I ever had,' Mike exclaims, 'The response from the audiences has just been awesome. They get it, they laugh at it, they're moved by the ideas in it, and it's just one out of another out-of-body, pinch-me experiences that I've had in the last 20 years doing it.'

As far as where he plans to go next with his continuously illustrious career in comedy, Mike Myers says all that matters with that is whether or not he'll continue to be able do the basic thing he's loved most since the beginning, making an audience laugh.

'You know, I don't have a master plan for my career,' Myers says, 'I don't know what my next movie is, I never do. And I create and write it, it takes a long time and I want it to be good. I take my silly very seriously and make the responsibility of being an entertainer very, very seriously.'

'I love doing this and I feel very grateful that I get to do it,' he adds, 'Look, I'm an idiot from Toronto who grew up in a working class, blue-collar neighborhood. I came to this country with a Canadian dollar and a dream.'