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- [00:00]
Mike Myers
Foreign.
- [00:10]
Jesse David Fox
Hello and welcome to Good One, a podcast about jokes. I'm your host, Jesse David Fox. This week's guest is Mike Myers. You know, from being one of the biggest comedy stars of my lifetime, of any lifetime. I had the opportunity to interview Mike in November at Vulture Festival, and today I'm sharing that wonderful conversation with you all. Specifically, basically, I was awarding Mike Vulture's honorary degree, an award we give out to artists that we feel connected to who shape the culture and exciting particular to them ways. Wayne's World, Austin Power, Shrek. Clearly Mike did that. I could have easily talked to Mike for hours about any one of his projects. But I am happy with what we're able to touch on in this conversation and how it captures how Mike has approached his singular career. If you want to watch the conversation, head over to the Vulture YouTube channel. We got some very exciting Vulture Festival stuff coming up in the next few weeks. I'm very excited for you to see also this holiday season, if you're looking for something to get the comedy nerd in your life, my book, Comedy How Comedy Conquered Culture and the Magic that Makes It Work is out in paperback now.
- [01:40]
Mike Myers
Bonjour, madame de monsieur. Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this show. Bonjour, madame de monsieur. I am so very happy to be here. Bonjour, madame to monsieur.
- [01:56]
Jesse David Fox
Hello. I am Jesse David Fox. I'm a senior writer at Vulture. I'm executive producer of Vulture Festival, host of Good on Podcast. Yeah, yeah. But to begin, I want to.
- [02:05]
Mike Myers
What was that?
- [02:05]
Jesse David Fox
I was going to give more credits, but they already stopped listening to my credits. But to start, I want to present you with this, which is an honorary degree master's in culture from Vulture. It's not just a name, it's a.
- [02:23]
Mike Myers
Real seen here in happier days. Very good, thank you very much.
- [02:32]
Jesse David Fox
What does the honor mean to you? More broadly, what does culture mean to you? What does it mean to be a part of this thing that was very meaningful to you?
- [02:42]
Mike Myers
What does culture mean to me? Might be the most open ended question I've ever been asked in my life.
- [02:46]
Jesse David Fox
I only got that one question, so.
- [02:48]
Mike Myers
This is a huge honor. You know, I grew up in government subsidized housing in Toronto. My parents were immigrants from England. England won the war and lost the peace and their. Their greatest export was talented young people. And so they moved to Canada and my dad loved the United States and he loved both of them. Met in amateur dramatics acting and my dad revered comedians. My son's name is Spike, based on Spike Milligan. And my Dad's name was Spike as well. So, you know, it's. Culture is everything. Culture is. I never thought I'd get to be in culture. With us tonight is Jay Roach, the director of Austin Powers, who is. He's a brother from another mother and a fantastic filmmaker. And somebody, when I moved to Los Angeles, actually went to movies and. Which was great. But he and I came up in different houses. You and somewhere in ghostly America, where was it? Where. Albertuku. Right. And we both found each other. So when you say culture, it's an interesting thing because Jay is one of the most cultured people I've ever met. And I didn't realize how much meeting cultured people meant to me. And. And it doesn't require any money. You know, you don't have to have money to have culture. And my production company is called no Money Fun Films because I don't think the access to money or capital keeps you from culture. And culture is. For me, when a comedy was on in our house, our house smelled nicer. It was a universal truce. And it makes you think of things. It binds you to the rest of the people. You know, Freud said that laughter is an ensemble process. I love the Toronto Maple Leafs. I love Liverpool Football Club, and I love going first weekend to see comedies. That sense of being in the crowd, to me, and that agreement and culture is an orgy of agreement. And there's few chances for us to have mass agreement like culture. So it's. And I trying to. And have successfully instilled it in my children who also love culture. And if they say something mean and it's funny, it's fine, basically.
- [05:48]
Jesse David Fox
So I wanted to use Wayne as a way of talking about your early years into find yourself on both Canadian and American television. So who were you when you came up with the earliest versions of Wayne? What was the light bulb moment?
- [06:06]
Mike Myers
I was a punk rocker. I was a punk rocker in Toronto, which is, you know, they always say punks rule, okay. In Canada, it's punks rule. Okay, Mom. You know, it's. It's will bite you. Will probably gum you more than bite you, really, as a punk rocker. But all around, we were people who were into heavy metal. It was such a universal. Well, at least to North American suburban heavy metal thing. And that what I. Again, going back to culture and having no money fun, you know, I wanted the movie to look like $10 trying to be $10 million, you know what I mean? And one of the things with growing up in Canada, show business is there's no Money in it. Which is kind of great because in a weird way, it. It makes you experiment more. And don't take this wrong in Canada if you're out there. But everything you do in Canada doesn't go against your career, you know what I mean? It's a place to get your 10,000 hours, you know what I mean? And for me, I just. I like the spirit of friends, you know, I liked my friends. And I'd seen A Hard Day's Night, and I thought I cried at the end of it because I wanted to hang out with the Beatles that much, Believe it or not, the Burt Reynolds movies, I thought, oh, when I get older, I'm gonna have friends and we're gonna laugh at stuff. And I'd like the movie to feel like it's a party that you've been invited to, you know what I mean? And that the molecules on the screen, there's more molecules. It's as if the air is thicker. You can feel the air, you know?
- [07:51]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. So you mentioned the sort of.
- [07:54]
Mike Myers
Do I sound like I'm on drugs or something? Does that make sense?
- [07:57]
Jesse David Fox
Makes sense. So you Talked about the 10,000 hours of being able to make comedy and work for Canadian television. We have one example of this, of you playing Wayne. I believe this is from 40 years ago on the Canadian show City Limits.
- [08:09]
Mike Myers
Really, it's really good to have you here. And I want to wish you a lot of luck with the band, too. Are you telling me to get lost? Oh, no, I'm Stan. Oh, no, I wouldn't listen. There's this excellent party I was supposed to crash, and I said I wasn't gonna come, man. Oh, you came here instead of going to a party? Wayne, I'm amazed.
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Jesse David Fox
I mean, you are a party animal.
- [08:28]
Mike Myers
I'm a maniac. I mean, the almanac.
- [08:31]
Jesse David Fox
The almanac, yeah.
- [08:33]
Mike Myers
Partier's Almanac. I'm in there. I didn't know about that. That's right. A whole section devoted to Wayne. Wayne Camel.
- [08:39]
Jesse David Fox
Hi.
- [08:42]
Mike Myers
That was a good friend of mine, Christopher Ward, who's in the Band of Ming Ti with Susanna Hoffs, who's Jay's wife.
- [08:51]
Jesse David Fox
So.
- [08:51]
Mike Myers
And that was improvised at 3:30 in the morning on Canadian TV.
- [08:57]
Jesse David Fox
What do you see there? Like, that's obviously such a. I mean, at that point, you'd already been doing Wayne for a few years at this point. But, like, what do you see there? What do you. What did that person know about what the character was? That stayed true. And what was there still to find out about the character?
- [09:10]
Mike Myers
One of my heroes is I have a few heroes, but Peter Sellers is my definite hero, which is he. He committed to. He saw no difference between dramatic acting and comedic comedic acting. He thought that true Comedy acting is 99.99 dramatic acting with 0.001 commentary, which is to say you make it slightly heightened. And one of the things about the great Phil Hartman was he had it. It's like gold, which has to have a little bit of impurity in it. His was minute, you know what I mean? And it was a total commitment. Alec Guinness is another one. So many great. Danny Aykroyd, another huge influence. But none of this is science, okay? So this is. We're in the theoretical. But comedy acting has chord changes between moods faster than would exist in life, okay? So if you're on a. Doing a dramatic play, you have to build up to the change in comedy. It can be, now get the fuck out. Right? That change is in the 0.001 of impurity, where it is not verisimilitude, but there is exaggeration. You know what I'm saying? And I think that's my favorite kind of Christopher Guest. Another one of what a great instrument.
- [10:43]
Jesse David Fox
So I guess my question is, you know, you had this character at a pretty young age. You're a teenager. You had already started performing at a young age. And, you know, before American television, you got to see it. You had done it at Second City. You'd done Second City. You went to England for a time. I imagine you worked on a little bit there. You came back, did Second City. I was just wondering how the character evolved in those first, let's say, 10 years before he even did it on SNL.
- [11:07]
Mike Myers
I wanted the character to have knowledge that you wouldn't expect he might have. So which in order to get along in Scarborough, Ontario, and still get good marks, I had to go, yeah, that guy's crazy, eh? But at the same time, I did a contrast and compare essay on the Spy who Loved Me and Joseph Campbell's cosmogenic monomyth cycle, you know what I mean? So I still got great marks, but I. I didn't want to hang out with the eggheads. I wanted to hang out with the party animals.
- [11:42]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [11:42]
Mike Myers
And so, you know, I try to infuse this idea that he has much more knowledge than you find yourself adaptable to the possibility he could have.
- [11:54]
Jesse David Fox
Did he become more. You like, was it a message of what part of yourself you could put into the character?
- [12:00]
Mike Myers
No, it's. It's. It's a Time in my life, it actually didn't become more me, it became. It became sentimental. I love Canada. I have three passports. I'm truly an international man of mystery. I have a Canadian passport. I moved to England, got an English one, and then gratefully and thankfully became an American. So we were going to become American. When my parents moved from Liverpool, they went to Buffalo, and it was closed. It. The. The. He didn't have a job. He's supposed to work at the Dunlap factory. And they were like, we don't know who you are. And he goes, all right, we'll try Canada. And so, you know, English by heritage, American by your grace. Thank you. And Canadian by God's grace.
- [12:53]
Jesse David Fox
Wayne was part of the story of how you got SNL in the first place. Can you tell that story?
- [12:58]
Mike Myers
So this is something people don't believe, but it's absolutely true. I moved to England in. I think it was 83. Was it? Yes, 83. I moved to England in 83. And Saturday night Live was on, but I never watched it because I had one of those top loading VCRs, and it was on at exactly the same time as the Toronto Maple Leaf game. So I could only tape one thing. And of course, I watched the Toronto Maple Leafs, right? And. And, you know, so I didn't watch it for those years before I went there because I was already on Second City. And then in England, nobody had heard of Saturday Night Live at all. Somewhere I went with a group of friends and I said, we were gonna get cheeseburgers. And I said, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger. And they're going, why did you say that three times? And I was like. And, oh, Gilda Radner is the other one, I think, is. If I did not mention it, she's my hero. But anyways, so when I came back, I was in a cab with Dave Foley from the Kids in the Hall. And in those days in Toronto, we had really hilarious cab dispatchers that you could hear in the backseat. And this one guy go, okay, steals an Eglinton. And then he'd go, if somebody took it, he'd go, give that man a bologna sandwich, right? And that was his whole thing, right? Eastern taxi. Then he started saying something like, lands down in Dupont. Then he'd go, isn't that special? And I turned to Dave Foley, I said, what the fuck is that? That's really funny. And he goes, that's Dana Carvey. And I said, who's Dana Carvey? He said, he's on Saturday Night Live. Right now. And I said, you should check it out. So I checked it out, and I was like, oh, my God, that's really, really funny. But I had no idea. So when I got to Saturday Night Live and saw how good these guys were, I was scared shitless. I had an anxiety attack. Phil Hartman, I mean, Dana Carvey, you know, Nealan. Jan Hooks, who I also worship, you know, it was unbelievable.
- [15:03]
Jesse David Fox
I think so is your third or fourth episode you did, Wayne. I want to play just the beginning.
- [15:07]
Mike Myers
Oh, I haven't even told you the story.
- [15:09]
Jesse David Fox
So I did.
- [15:11]
Mike Myers
No, I got fun tangents. I'm sorry. So by technicality, I was at a Second City reunion show, and all these famous people were on it, and now I'm an alumni, even though I'd just gone to Chicago. And I was on right out of the break, right where people are starting to get bored, and is Robin Williams gonna show up? You know, one of those things. And I did my sketch, Wayne and Nancy, where I come from the audience, and I came from the audience, and it fucking killed. Which was unbelievable because I had only been in the show for, like, two seconds, and it was. It killed. I mean, it was cheer stomps and whistles. It was a jet taking off. And I don't know what happened, but the audience just went for it and loved it. And then I did an improv at the end with Del Close, who's one of the founding members of Second City. And right around the time Reagan had been shot, but survived. And the joke was that he'd been shot with a silver. He needed to be shot with a silver bullet because he couldn't be killed by conventional weapons, right? And so it was a game called freeze tag, and it was the last one, and somebody was like that. And I said, freeze. When I was like, what am I doing? These are all movies, right? And I went. This time I didn't forget the silver bullet. Mr. Reagan lights out this crazy thing. Two weeks later, I'm in Chicago, and I get a call from Lorne Michaels, and he said, I understand you do a Wayne character. And so.
- [16:45]
Jesse David Fox
So let's. Let's play clip number two, which is the. From the first Wayne's World. The beginning of the first Wayne's World.
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Mike Myers
Cable 10 is not responsible for the content or views expressed by the participants in this program. Sway World. Excellent. Excellent. All right, all right. Okay. Okay. Like. Welcome to Wayne's World. All right, here's your excellent host, Wayne Campbell. Party. Party.
- [17:17]
Jesse David Fox
It's Friday.
- [17:18]
Mike Myers
It's 10:30, man. It's time to party. Welcome to Wayne's World. I'm your excellent host, Wayne Campbell. With me, as always, is Garth.
- [17:28]
Jesse David Fox
So you are very kind.
- [17:31]
Mike Myers
Thank you.
- [17:31]
Jesse David Fox
I wanted to play just the beginning because, you know, people come to SNL with characters as it is, but then that character has to be in a sketch. And I think it's very interesting that right away you're like, okay, well, public access. And now he has a sidekick. How did you flesh it out? And you. To make it more than just like, well, I have this person. What is he going to do?
- [17:52]
Mike Myers
I was going to originally make it Scarborough. I turned to. Oh, God, it's been so. While. One of the writers, who's from Chicago, I described Scarborough to her and she said, yeah, that's Aurora, Illinois. I said, aurora, it is. And I made it Aurora because there's an Aurora just outside of Toronto that's very much like scarf. So it all kind of made sense and whatever. And I didn't call. I. I'd always wanted to make Wayne's World a movie. I saw it as a world. And one of the things that. When I was talking to Jay Roach, which is so I think that comedy is production design. I think that comedy movies are worlds. They're immaculate universes that they bring you into. So I purposely called it Wayne's World because I love Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Oh, my God, what a masterpiece. Yes. Jacques Tati, the Monkees, the series. The Monkees. I love being immersed in a comedic world. So I had actually written it out as a movie before I even got there. And then I was just trying to find a way to have the brilliant Dana Carvey be in my sketch. And that was about it.
- [19:10]
Jesse David Fox
The part of the world is. Part of all your words is language, that your. Your movies are filled with people speaking a language that exists only in those movies. And.
- [19:18]
Mike Myers
Right.
- [19:18]
Jesse David Fox
And I want to talk about catchphrases because, I mean, they fall in and out in favor. I mean, like, SNL has many fewer recurring characters. I wonder, you know, what is your case for the. Why you like a catchphrase? What is the power of it? You know, when you write them, do you. Is there something you're looking for?
- [19:36]
Mike Myers
No, I've never. I've never. It's not like, Jay, remember getting your belly? I mean, that was an improv. You know what I mean? It wasn't like, ladies and gentlemen, my next catchphrase. Click, get in your belly. Very good. I like, when you have parents that are from Liverpool, talk like this, like, oh, fucking great. You know, you start to. The new one I love is chicken in a can of Coke. For how people from Liverpool. Can I get some chicken in a can of Coke? Boock. My dad used to say, the little animal in the back that gathers nuts. Squiddle. So you get attuned to how people talk, you know?
- [20:27]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
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Mike Myers
And. And Canadian, I guess I have a Canadian accent.
- [20:33]
Jesse David Fox
I have a paper.
- [20:34]
Mike Myers
And I like how people talk, but I've never. Jay. Never. We've never designed a catchphrase. It's. I just really like how people talk. It's just fascinating to me. And I think Canada is an interesting country because it is a little bit of a blank slate, you know what I mean? We're not a melting pot. We're a salad bowl. You know what I mean? And it's free to be you and me and say what you will Canada's very free to be you and me which I love.
- [21:06]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. So we talk about the world, talk about the movie. So you have the building of Wayne is continuing more and more the world. And I think about the play scene. It's a very famous scene from the movie where you. You literally do see, not just say.
- [21:22]
Mike Myers
One thing about catchphrases. So Dana. Dana just. Dana used to do this really fucking funny thing. He used to try just to torture Lauren. He'd go, mike, I got another sketch for you. What? It's just. It's a catchphrase. Just go with it. And so he invented the catchphrase, which is, hey, Bill. Hey, Gum. What are you doing? Well, I got to. Got to. Got to go, right? Just to fuck with Lauren. And Lorne would often, because he's so smart, Lauren halfway would go, right, and then he would pull it. We'd go on to the next thing. And the other one was two guys doing change, like at a bodega. So how much is that? A dollar. Okay, here it is. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50. And then Lauren was like, fuck you. So they're not. I don't think they're. You can't think them up in a lab.
- [22:26]
Jesse David Fox
So the building out of Wayne's World. I'm going to play Clip 3 from the movie Wayne's World.
- [22:33]
Mike Myers
I think we'll go with a little Bohemian Rhapsody, gentlemen. Good call. I see a little silhouette of a man lightning. Very, very frightening me. Galileo, Galileo. I didn't die recently, did I? Sorry.
- [23:10]
Jesse David Fox
So the original script, the first script of Wayne's World is online, and this scene was not in it. There's this moment. But you play a little about Led Zeppelin and you play there's a guy who's going to puke. But this was added at some point through it. How did the. We need this idea to get in there. How did this sort of idea evolve?
- [23:32]
Mike Myers
Yeah, well, it's one of the greatest rock songs ever. It has a strange operatic quality. You know, I loved Queen and in our car we had a Dodge Dart. Light blue Dodge Dart that had a vomit stain that we chipped into the shape of Elvis on the side. It was this black mucoid thing. And everybody was assigned a Galileo. That was the big thing. It was fights. If you took my Galileo, you know what I mean? And it was going to be a long operetta, actually. So the, the thought that I always had was when you see the sketch on the show, it's the basement. We will literally take you up to the top. And then I thought this should be in order to illustrate the world and these other people are going to be in it. An operetta. And so my version of it was three times longer. And then it got chopped and chopped and chopped where every bit of it was. Is he going to go? Is he going to puke? You know, let him go. You know, let him go and he's going to puke. But it all got chopped down. So the store, they wanted Guns N Roses. Yes.
- [24:39]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [24:40]
Mike Myers
Okay. So yes.
- [24:40]
Jesse David Fox
And they wanted Guns and Roses.
- [24:41]
Mike Myers
They wanted Guns and Roses. Which I am a Guns N Roses fan. I just didn't have anything funny for.
- [24:45]
Jesse David Fox
Can you tell put us in that moment or one of those meetings where someone goes, it should be Guns and Roses. And what it felt in you to know it can't be Guns and Roses.
- [24:57]
Mike Myers
I don't know, I think I. I think that having Liverpool parents, there's, there's a, there's a built in, fuck you quality that I now see in my children. By the way, my youngest is just a wild beast. And it makes us laugh because I go, hey, you need to brush your teeth. No, I'm like, you don't have a choice. You know what I mean? She feels, she does. There's, there's. I just had a knowing, you know what I mean? You just. I never thought I would ever be discovered. I thought I would gonna have to discover myself. I thought I'm never gonna get hired. I'm gonna have to hire myself. And I just thought this is what I want to do. And if, if it doesn't work out, it is very odd, I have to say, to sit here at 61 with super crazy white hair, wearing a suit and all this stuff, sewing. You know, it never was going to necessarily work out, to be honest. You know what I mean? But I did know what I wanted to do, and I did know that I was going to fight. You know, I mean, I wasn't going to be mean, it wasn't going to be ugly, but I was not going to be talked out of my vision because I thought, I probably only get one turn at bat. I'm not going to necessarily get more turns at bat. Why not go down swinging? You know what I mean? So that's really what I wanted to do. And there was a tremendous amount of pressure. And to Lauren Michaels's credit, he said, nope, the boy has a passion for it. Let's get it.
- [26:22]
Jesse David Fox
So it. And you. Obviously we were playing the scene decades after it aired, and. And. And then the movie was a huge hit. How did you process the sort of success of the first one and then the sort of relatively less success compared to the huge success of the first one of the second one?
- [26:39]
Mike Myers
I didn't want to do a second one. It's funny, I didn't think it necessitated a sequel. I always think that when you ask somebody to come back into their world, you are bringing them at a different time in their life to complete the story. Jay and I spent a tremendous amount of time with Austin Powers, knowing why we wanted the audience to come back, and we wanted to honor them for having seen the first one, the first two, and then the first three. And not to be immodest, but you're here, Jay. Whatever. But, you know, third. The third did more than the second, the second did more than the first. And I don't think it's ever been repeated because we spent a tremendous amount of time trying to make sure that we don't rip people off and that you understand why you're being brought back to this world. I didn't know why Austin Powers, why Wayne's world needed to come back. I had an entirely different idea. My idea was that it was going to be Wayne Gets His Own country. And it's the first heavy metal state. So I thought if we take you from the basement, we see in the movie, first movie upstairs, and then he comes across a piece of paper from the Revolutionary War that said that Aurora never signed on to be part of America. Wayne wants to put on a rock show. The local elders don't want to. And I go, too bad. We are the kingdom of Wayne Davia. It's the first heavy metal state. Now, I said to the people at the time, everyone, there is a movie called Passport to Pimlico. I said, I'll write this, but you have to get the rights for it. They said, fine, go ahead and write it. And I said, it's Passport to Pimlico. I got a copy of it. Everything. All this stuff all said Passport to Pimlico. I said it in every meeting, blah, blah, blah. A new administration comes into Paramount and they go, we never got the rights to it, and you're shooting in 10 weeks. And so I rewrote it in 10 weeks. And that's. That's. That's the story of Wayne's World too. And I had a choice, though. I go, oh, fuck, do I go, no, I don't want to do it. Or do I salvage the jokes that would have worked in the other one and. And make it to be about Wayne Stock, which is what the climax of the movie was anyways. And. But I wanted it to be like the. The ministry of being partied out, you know, the department of being hassled by your parents, a clinic where you've got a shitty song stuck in your head, you know, all that stuff. And super, super local.
- [29:21]
Jesse David Fox
So the second one comes out, you leave snl. There's this sort of period. Can you talk about where you're at emotionally, creatively, and sort of how Austin Powers emerged? Austin Powers, the character emerged before even Austin Powers.
- [29:35]
Mike Myers
The movie emerged right around time. My dad had passed away and I had lived in England and I was just walking down the street and I thought, whatever happened to swingers? You know, whatever happened to, like, she's a sexy stew or they're twins, you know, all that stuff that you're just like now are like, really? And, you know, being from Sweden or anything like that, Just that whole world. And I love James Bond. Like I said, my essay that got me into university was the Spy who Loved Me and Joseph Campbell's cosmogenic Monomyth Cycle. And I thought, that's what I want to do. I want to do a character like that. And I. I mean, I studied James Bond movies inside and out. I knew all the tropes and I just loved it. And I really wanted to do a parody of spy spoofs more than James Bond. James Bond was kind of at its. A little bit of a nadir, a little trough. It wasn't so popular at the moment. And again, I just wanted to have Coca Cola Reds and AT&T Blues, Kodak yellows in this world and then Dr. Evil's world would be gray and black and sharp.
- [30:57]
Jesse David Fox
When you had the idea of Dr. Evil, did you think of Lorne right away and did. Was it a sort of like back and forth of like, oh, if he's like Lauren, he's like this. And if it.
- [31:07]
Mike Myers
No.
- [31:07]
Jesse David Fox
Did you have that voice?
- [31:08]
Mike Myers
It was Donald Pleasence. It was Donald Pleasence forever. And I had actually done a show with Neil Malarkey, my comedy partner. Of course, when I came back to Canada for Christmas, my dad says, what do you. Are you working? I said, yeah, I've got this comedy partner named Neil Malarkey. He said, well, presumably Bill Shenanigans was busy. His actual name is Malarkey. Right. And we did a sketch called Dr. Wicked that was sort of like a little quick show with everything happened underneath. It was like a puppet show, only we were people. And I had at one point wanted to do a one man show of a generic Bond villain. So an evening with some Bond villain talking about how things like, you know, it's really hard to get sharks with laser beams, you know, and, you know, just all of the. The truth of. And the truth of. The cliche of all those things that you. Just. A private army, you know. Well, presumably you'd need a private cafeteria too. That for the army, you know, like just all of the questions that never get answered in those. And I was going to put that up at. At Edinburgh and then ended up just doing a show with Malarkey and.
- [32:25]
Jesse David Fox
And then Lauren, the Lauren of it.
- [32:27]
Mike Myers
The Lauren of it is, is just a little tiny overlay. I. I'm Canadian. He's Canadian. He has an educated Canadian accent and I have a Scarborough accent. The thing of Lorne, I went to his house. You know, he's a Canadian hero. I think it's kind of hard to explain just what a Canadian. I did a project or a project on him in grade eight or eighth grade. And he goes, mike, do you want to come up to the Hamptons? I was like, yeah, or am I fired? I went, sure. Okay. I went. And he was like, that's where. That's Mick's room. Or do you want Keith's room? You know. And I was like, it was fine. Couch works, you know, the car works. So anyways, he's there and he has this big dinner with everybody. I'd never been to the Hamptons, you know, and it's like. And it's all people who are captains of industry, but also people that own elemental things. Like, you know, that's Bill Smith, he owns Basalt. And my joke was, there's Sesqui. He invented the question mark. And over there, you know, he owns Lake Ontario. Next to him is the man who invented the pregnant paws, or so I think, you know. And so it's like all of these people that own, you know, he owns air, you know, And I, hi, I'm from Scarborough, right? And so my first thing I said as a joke was, Gee, Mr. Gatsby, it's so great of you to invite me. All these people are so crazy. I see those parties from across the lake and that big blue light. And it got a big laugh. And Lauren looked around like, my latest creation. All Bond villains tell you everything. Yeah, all Bond villains are cultural. They all have an affliction. The Dr. Evil Pinky was originally that he was unfrozen, but his hand was 10 minutes late. And so he's constantly warming up his hand, right? And he goes, look at me, I'm a freak. And he's in no way a freak. You know, look at this hand, right? And they, they're cultural. They're like. So one of the things we do with Lauren is like, Mike, do you own an Enigma machine? You know, the code breaking thing? I said, no. Mick has one. There's only three in the world. You know, that sort of thing.
- [35:00]
Jesse David Fox
That makes sense.
- [35:01]
Mike Myers
I'll go get one.
- [35:03]
Jesse David Fox
We'll be right back with more Mike Myers live from Vulture Festival.
- [35:11]
Mike Myers
It's a new year. Maybe you're taking a month off from drinking, you know, dry January, and maybe you're replacing it with something else. Puff, puff, pass. Something like one in five people who do dry January say they're smoking weed instead. And more Americans are now smoking weed daily than drinking daily. Current president is into it. No one should be in jail merely for using or possessing marijuana, period. Future president is into it. I've had friends and I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing. The medical marijuana failed President and former prosecutor was down to clown. People shouldn't have to go to jail for smoking weed. Even health conscious brain work guy likes it. My position on marijuana is that it should be federally legalized. Everyone's getting down with pot, but legislatively we're still stuck with a hot mess in the United States today. Explained. Wherever you listen, come find us.
- [36:17]
Jesse David Fox
Now back to Mike Myers. So there are other characters that you play. I want to play a clip of one of those characters and talk about the day this was shot.
- [36:24]
Mike Myers
May I present to you my spy in the ministry of defense, Fat Bastard. First things first. Where's your shitter? I've got a turtle head poking out. Charming. I'm no kidding. I got a crap on deck that could choke a donkey. It's squidgy. Oh, Christ. I'm getting all emotional from it, you know? Right. Fat Bastard, could I have my mojo, please? Where's my money? All right, give him his money. Jesus Christ, he's tiny. I've had bigger chunks of corn than my crap. Wait a minute. He kind of looks like a baby. Come here. I'm gonna eat ye. I'm bigger than you. I'm higher in the food chain. Get in my belly. Come on. You're lucky, wee man. Ah. Can I have a hug? Dr. Evil, let me make you a deal, all right? You get the mojo, you keep your money, and I'll get your baby. Right? I want my baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back ribs I want my baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back ribs Excuse me. Chili baby back ribs.
- [38:12]
Jesse David Fox
So in the script, I believe it's the corn joke. And I believe that is the end of the scene for Fat Bastard. So what was that day like?
- [38:21]
Mike Myers
Fun. Yeah, making comedies is fun, dude.
- [38:26]
Jesse David Fox
Did you do the take normally? And then you just had this idea what it.
- [38:29]
Mike Myers
Fat Bastard. One of the first things I said is Fat Bastard was I ate a baby just because I like the word ET you know, and bebe. And, you know, we get as scripted and then we do shizzies and gizzies, you know, shits and giggles. Yeah, one that is more improvised.
- [38:53]
Jesse David Fox
I want to play a clip of another Austin Powers character. Well, I want to play another clip, but it's not from Austin Powers. But you'll see how it relates to Austin Powers.
- [39:00]
Mike Myers
Is it even one of my movies?
- [39:02]
Jesse David Fox
You'll see it's from the television show Real Sex.
- [39:04]
Mike Myers
This is our country estate of Fenfatu. It's far outside the city. It's between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. This is our farmhouse. It's an old farmhouse, almost 150 years old. And for almost 150 years, there were only cows inside. And now they're only couples.
- [39:25]
Jesse David Fox
So walk me through seeing that, watching Real Sex on hbo, being like that voice is staying in my brain until I can find a use for it.
- [39:33]
Mike Myers
I was obsessed with that episode. And I had a Dutch soccer coach. And I didn't realize they shush when they talk shows, this shows the thing like this. And I just. Again, it's. I don't know. I just. What did. What did you think? Of that. I mean, I just. I watched it and it was like, there's a gold member.
- [39:57]
Jesse David Fox
So you had gold member. Maybe already you had. You knew you had gold member, but you.
- [40:01]
Mike Myers
I didn't. I didn't have a take on it. No. Yeah, I knew it would be. Often the Bond villains have another Bond villain. Yeah. So.
- [40:11]
Jesse David Fox
So in the Fat Bastard clip, you say donkey, which is. You say donkey in another movie.
- [40:18]
Mike Myers
Where's this going?
- [40:21]
Jesse David Fox
It's going to wherever Shrek is set. I can't remember. So before we talk about the voice you landed on for Shrek, can you talk about what the voice you did at first and why and before you. You went with the voice that ended up being Shrek? You know, what was the voice you went with? Why? And what was the feeling like after you recorded those versions that you felt wasn't right?
- [40:43]
Mike Myers
So I did it in a very thick Canadian accent, thicker than I have. And I always saw fairy tales. So this is the craziest thing was I. I went to the premiere of Saving Private Ryan, and I was in the lobby, and Jeffrey Katzenberg comes up and brings his daughters who then do the dance sequence from Austin Powers in the lobby. After such a heavy movie, I was in tears because my parents were in World War II. And I was like. I was shell shocked. And then they're like, and. And I was like, it's great. It's great. Read our room. And then he said, mike, would you ever do an animated movie? I said, sure. He goes, well, we have an animated movie. It's called Shrek. And I said, well, that's the worst title I've ever heard in my life because it's the sound you make after drinking too many Molson Canadians. And so he said, just come down and see it. So I saw it, and what I liked was that it had turned fairy tales on its head. And I thought that was really, really smart. The. It's a Eurocentric form, the fairy tale dealing with class. Right. And to have a African American voice in Donkey in it, I thought was brilliant. To say, yes, we know it's Eurocentric, but it can be reinvented and more inclusive. And I thought that was a really brilliant idea. I assumed that ogres were working people in that world. So as a working. Not anymore. But I was working class some time ago growing up working class. I thought a Canadian accent, sure, it'd be great. So I tried it and I just didn't connect to it. I just didn't do a very good job. So then I thought I would do something like Lothar of the Hill people, because that was the character I did in D and D. And Jeffrey was cool. And it was all, nothing's been animated. We're just. And I thought, I'm not connecting to that either. Now, as a sidebar, I looked at the maquette, you know, the little. It's made of clay, of all the people, and it looked exactly like Chris Farley. And I was like. And so I was at this meeting, it's my third meeting. I said, guys, was this offered to Chris Farley? And then he died? Everyone looked at their shoes. I said, no, but seriously, really, no. Oh, okay. I get into the parking lot and I turn, I go, yeah, I, I think, I think this was Farley's. It was. And I was right, but they didn't tell me. Anyways, so then I said, listen far chords English Eddie's hilarious in it. African American voice. I said, scottish people are working class people, and it's in that Euro world, you know what I mean? Jeffrey said, no, I like what you're doing. And I said, I, I don't. Jeffrey. He goes, no, it's fine. He goes, we have to spend so much money to reanimate. Not true. It was all wires, you know, said animatronics, where it's like donkey. What's going on there? Ah, don't do that. You know what I mean? So they spent some money, but not millions. And I was born at night, but not last night. And I was like, jeffrey, I know you haven't spent that much money. You know what I mean? Me. And I said, it's. So I called Steven Spielberg, who's part of the thing, and I said, steven, I'm. I, I want this to be good. I, I love this idea of you are beautiful to me, you know, I, I, how do I put this without being seemingly. I, I've never traded on my looks. I, I, I don't consider myself. I, I'm a comedy actor, you know? I mean, I'm not like, not like Rob Lowe. When you see Rob Lowe, you just start to laugh. And I'll say, rob, holy fuck. And Rob goes, I know, right? Because he knows, right? So I always thought, well, what if, you know, I can play a guy that needs to learn to love himself and find himself beautiful. I can really connect to that because you can't rip people off, man. You have to give. Every time you're out there, you have to give a hundred percent, you know? So I said, if he's Scottish, I get that. I get The Scottish thing, it fits with Farquad, who's English. It fits with the Euro thing. And, and the other thing is ogres have tempers. And so the Scottish people, which is like, ah, that's great. See you coming over here like that. Take your shoes off. Right. That flash anger I knew could be inherently comedic. It is what an ogre would be. You would think I can get deep and you don't. You, you know what I mean in there. And so I said, let me just try it one more time. And he said, it's going to cost millions. I said, well, I'm not getting paid more to do this, you know, let me just do it. I did it. I got a letter from Steven Spielberg saying, thank you so much for caring. And it's framed, it's in my house. He goes, you're absolutely right. You're 100% more connected to it. Jeffrey came to like it, which is fine. Are you here, Jeffrey? And here we are. And then I saw another thing with dragons and the guy's Scottish. That's all I'm saying. So have you how to tame your dragons? That was called Train Train. Tame shows Tame in Canada.
- [46:28]
Jesse David Fox
Have you started any of the work on Shrek 5? Have you talked to Eddie and Cameron about it?
- [46:33]
Mike Myers
You don't get to see them until later.
- [46:35]
Jesse David Fox
Oh, really?
- [46:35]
Mike Myers
Yeah.
- [46:36]
Jesse David Fox
Have you heard their voices?
- [46:37]
Mike Myers
I love donkey so much. I, I, I want Donkey to live in my house. I love that character. And I, I kind of enjoy not seeing Eddie, although he's hilarious. He's lovely. Very nice to me. Very generous human being. I love donkey so much that I get excited before the thing to see him, you know what I mean? And to hear him. So then I see him at the, at the, at the press junkets and stuff. And, you know, it's fun. Yeah, he's a cool dude. Cooler than I'll ever be.
- [47:13]
Jesse David Fox
In the last couple days, you've done some dramatic roles or roles in dramatic. How do you approach those? Is it different than the character work you do in the comedies? How is it similar? What have you learned from those experiences in Glorious Basterds or, like, behavior in Rhapsody?
- [47:30]
Mike Myers
Well, it was an absolute joy to work with Quentin Tarantino. I love his work. He wanted it to be a genre study. So he. What's the name of the actor who played Alfred in Batman? No, no, no. In the, the original television. Oh, I should know his name. Alfred. Oh, oh, yeah. Adam west did a couple roles I'm trying to think of anyways, that guy and Jay, you Must know this. Oh, anyways, he sent me. Tarantino sent me, Alan Napier, Mother freaker. Thank you so much. Googled. That's okay. If only there was a machine that could tell us Alan Napier, in fact. And so I studied that, and then I met with the makeup people, and I had all these ideas, and I said, I'm doing a makeup test. And they came, and the makeup was already done. And I said I had ideas. And they went, no, this is what he wants. And I was like, okay, yes, sir. I serve at the pleasure of the President. And it was shot at Nazi headquarters, which was weird. That then became Soviet headquarters. And on my first day when I got there, it's the scene where the French painter is doing a thing of Hitler, you know, painting Hitler. And he said, mike, come in. You're gonna love it. Come in, comes in, and there's a guy with like a may we thing, and Hitler's doing, you know, you know, like this. I'm like, what the am I in for? That's Hitler, you know, and it was crazy. But anyways, the. That character. I. I was doing a genre. I was doing. I was doing a genre. You're so shocked by that. A genre? What, you can't play a genre Anyways.
- [49:48]
Jesse David Fox
In Bohemian Rhapsody, you play a music executive complaining about the song Bohemian Rhapsody and how it is too, too long and indulgent. And it's obviously a full circle moment because it's the song. But also watching it, having, you know, researched you, it felt it aligned with the theme of a lot of your work, which is sort of the struggle between the sort of business side of creativity and the sort of creative and the people creating it. Wayne's World is the business side trying to get people away from their initial vision. A lot of our conversation right now is about times you sort of stood up to the business side.
- [50:22]
Mike Myers
Yeah.
- [50:22]
Jesse David Fox
What is that? It is. What is your relationship with that now? How do you think about that? Those. Your. As you look at your career, the relationship to the business side of show business.
- [50:32]
Mike Myers
I love show. Less enamored with business, obviously. I. I've received some of the greatest notes from studios. I've learned so much from Lorne Michaels. If I hadn't done Wayne's World, I would never have done Austin. Been able to know how to do an Austin Powers. I mean, he's very generous, Lauren, with telling you the. The black arts of it. The rail politic of how things get made, the pragmatism. This. Lauren is picking me up in this chopper. I'll Be there in a second. Lauren ran a little long. I, I sit here at 61, I have three kids. I live in Vermont. I watch a lot of soccer and a lot of hockey. The Paul Bunyaning of my creative struggles is most amusing to me because mostly I just said, guys, I just don't see it that way. And it's, there's very little friction. It's mostly just conviction. And I, it really, it's a lot to ask an audience to sit in the dark, not talk about themselves and you have to give them the best that, you know, you can do. I never thought I'd ever get this shot and I didn't want to blow it.
- [51:57]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [51:58]
Mike Myers
And so I just had an instinct about Bohemian Rhapsody and instinct about Shrek being Scottish and it all just comes from, I can't do anything just for money. I've never done anything just for money. I just, I don't want to. And I saved my money because I'm Canadian and Scottish. So.
- [52:17]
Jesse David Fox
You know, most recently you did a miniseries for Netflix called the Pentavoret about a good natured global conspiracy in which you played, I believe, seven characters. And what really struck me and was so refreshing, watching it, is for whatever reason, there are fewer comedy showcases that are so character based. They're just, there's, there's fewer comedies being made in movies at all, like in theaters at least. What is it about character based comedy? Not character comedy based on two people in real life and they have a kid or whatever, you know, but like, what is it about character that has been a drive for you? That's been, I, I, I think it's.
- [52:55]
Mike Myers
I think how people talk and how they react and their perceptions is fascinating to me. The Henri Bergson in this essay laughter talked about comedy is, is when man acts as machine, Right? Which is when man acts as machine, they act as matter. If they act as matter, they're subject to the laws of entropy and they will die. And then his belief is that laughter is a nervous response to the realization of your own mortality. Right. Should I try that again? It's we, we're laughing at death. And it's a, it's, every culture has it. Every culture has it in the same way, which is this quick aspiration of hahahaha, you know why? You know, that's got to be weird because cultures that have never met each other do the same thing and usually deals with inflexibility either of the subject or of the person viewing the subject. You know, I'm saying the object or the subject inflexibility is the staple of comedy. Jay has a great expression which is, you see a guy walking down the street, he's eating a banana. He finishes, he throws the peel behind him. There's another guy walking behind him, right? He sees. He doesn't see the banana peel. Cut to the angle of the relationship. He goes to step, he misses the banana peel, crosses the street and gets hit by a banana truck. This is. You are unadaptable to the possibility that it could get worse. Also, one of Jay's theories is which is to exceed the expectation like by a lot. Exceed by a lot in Austin Powers. One of my favorite jokes is the slow motion steamroller chase can only exist by the key shot, which is the wide shot, which shows you the spatial relationship between the guy and the very slow moving thing. And yet he's acting as if it's fast. No, no, right. That inflexibility on his part. We recognize him to be a machine. He's matter. He's going to die. We laugh. This is the thing character offers you so much of both your expectation of how they might react and the character surprising you. And I guess that's one of the things with Wayne's world having more knowledge than he should or Alice Cooper knowing, you know, or Aerosmith going, you know, until the Soviet era. Apparatchiks, you know, and that's. That to me can be best done both as characters and in movies. What I love is movies have invented their own figurative language. So which is pull back to reveal, you know, that's something that comedy movies, comedies invented so much. Calendars flying off the wall, clocks going round. All of those things were invented by comedy filmmakers.
- [56:05]
Jesse David Fox
Speaking of movies, do you think you would make an Austin Powers 4?
- [56:08]
Mike Myers
Yes.
- [56:14]
Jesse David Fox
Follow up. What's the sort of where. Where. How close we are to a thing like that.
- [56:20]
Mike Myers
I can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non existence of a project, should it exist or not exist.
- [56:26]
Jesse David Fox
Jay. Jay is nodding. The SNL 50th is in a couple months, right. Are you planning on something? Can you confirm or deny if you're thinking of working?
- [56:41]
Mike Myers
Has anybody worked at Saturday Night Live here? Do we think that they have anything planned yet?
- [56:47]
Jesse David Fox
Well, I don't think they. I know they don't. But do you.
- [56:51]
Mike Myers
Do you think I would even question that it's that date, to be honest, or that it's going to be on television? They probably do a semaphore version of it. It's. No, they're very last minute. It's an under rehearsed Broadway, opening once a week. That's how they do it.
- [57:08]
Jesse David Fox
I was thinking about one of my favorite things you ever did was the Gong Show. And just the fact that you did it is one of the great things a comedian of your level has ever done. That you have had this career. And then you just. You did the Gong show as a character and didn't tell anyone that you're doing it. And I guess the question, like, as you've done so much, you've had successes, what excites you?
- [57:28]
Mike Myers
Well, that excited me. I. I loved Gong Show. To me, that was punk rock. I was a punk rocker. To me, the Gong show was punk rock. I never missed it. It was the Internet before the Internet. Do you know what I mean? And it was, as I said, my company is called no Money Fun Films. I love. And I was on a comedy circuit in England which was, you know, a guy who was. Had a drum set that had like a rotisserie chicken in it. And like, it was the craziest thing. The one guy's name was Melt it. And he would melt a block of ice 50 different ways. And that was his act. And you'd go, oh, this is going to be sucky. But. But then the audience was like, 39, got some road salt. He would lick it. Took a blowtorch to it. And there was just. In England, there was such a. Why, it was all amateur hour. And one of the things of growing up in a Liverpool house is, you know, if I had a friend who wasn't funny, my dad would say, oh, we can't come around anymore. He's not funny. And if you came into a Liverpool house, you needed to have a song, a story or a joke, you know what I mean? And that I never lost my love for that. And so when they said, do you want to do the Gong Show? They were like, you probably won't want to. I said, yes, I do. And there's a British comedian in mind that I want to do it as. But I want it to be that you think he's somebody in England. And I love doing that show that was. Was like summer camp for me. I fucking love that show.
- [58:54]
Jesse David Fox
So it's hard to process one success while you're doing it. You, you, you know, the movies come out and you're working on the next one. You don't really spend a lot of time to just think about what it has meant to people. Do you remember having a moment where you're able to stop and realize you. The impact of Your work.
- [59:13]
Mike Myers
I think. Well, just that you guys are here is amazing. It's just. Just that I think what's so weird is that it didn't go away, you know, I still see memes and stuff. And I can tell you it wasn't built. We made stuff we wanted to see. That's all I ever do, you know. I wanted to see the Gong Show. I wanted to do it, you know, I wanted to see. I love secret societies. I'm obsessed with them. And Netflix was great. I'll do it, do it, you know. And I was able to do it. The Prisoner was just. The original one was style for days and I loved it. I think I got the last letter that George Harrison ever wrote. It was a fan mail to me. And growing up in a house from Liverpool, the Beatles were the best of my gene pool, you know what I mean? They're famous, famous, you know, I mean. And their music is brought by the gods for us, you know what I mean? And it was the day he died. I received the letter and it was Dear Mike had been searching all over. You're for mini UVO doll. I can't find one. Anyways, great. Laughs Keep it up, George Harrison. And it's. I have to say, life's been hard since then because I kind of don't know what in terms of brass ring, that was the greatest. And then about five years ago, I went to Buckingham palace and friend of mine got us to go into the gate but not into the house. Dirty comedians, right? Get you to the gate but not the house, right? I was thrilled anyways. You have to wear a suit. You have to go through a security clearance. And I'm sitting there and then the band comes out, guys with flags. They stop and all of a sudden, right, they played for me. They knew I was coming. They played the Austin Powers theme. And then a guy comes by with a flag like this and they're not supposed to talk. He goes, I bet you've heard that song before, Mr. Myers, right? And I was like. I cried like a. I couldn't believe it.
- [61:39]
Jesse David Fox
Mike Myers, thank you so much for doing it. Thank you for. That's it for another episode of Good One Good One's produced by myself and Jelani Carter Gaddin Shikha Chin did our theme song, write our review and rate the show on Apple Podcasts 5 stars. Please email any comments, questions or laughing around suggestions to goodonepodcastmail.com or tweet @us.oodonepodcast. i'm Jesse David Fox and you can Follow me at Jesse David Fox. Buy my book, comedy book, whoever books are sold. Thanks for listening to Good one from New York magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine@nymag.com Pod be back next week with a new episode. Have a good one.
- [62:29]
Mike Myers
Welcome to Good One show about talking them jokes. Hey, good one. It's a good one.