Mike Myers on Love Guru, Shrek 4, Austin 4 and Wayne's World

By George 'El Guapo' Roush on June 10, 2008

Hockey fan and comedy veteran Mike Myers has brought a lot of memorable characters to the small screen with his run on Saturday Night Live. After Wayne's World and Austin Powers, Mike goes for the hat trick with his newest character Guru Pitka in Paramount's upcoming comedy, The Love Guru.

Here Mike talks about The Love Guru's beliefs, negative feedback regarding the film, and what the future may hold for Shrek, Wayne and Austin Powers.

Have you always been fascinated with Indian culture?

 

Myers: I have. I grew up in Toronto and as long as I can remember, as long as there was cable, even those old cable boxes that were wired to the TV there has been Bollywood movies on Toronto TV. They were on channel 47 and they were on a two o'clock in the morning. I'm an insomniac and I have been since the age of like eleven. I'm not a really good sleeper. I used to come home and I can't remember his last name, but it was Rakesh. Rakesh would come on and it would be Indian cinema night and it'd be like at three o'clock in the morning. He would say things like, 'Still awake? This next adventure –' and I would watch it and go, 'Wow. This is just a tapestry.' It was so different and ultimately it's Austin Powers. It's all singing, all dancing, very bright color palettes. I didn't know that then because I hadn't written it yet, but I was like this is just a fascinating parallel universe that's going on. I think it's so amazing that I live in a country that views at itself not as a melting pot, but as a salad bowl that has a ministry of multiculturalism and they have a multicultural channel and at two o'clock in the morning I get to see Indian movies. The Indian influence of this movie is that in 1991 my father passed away and I went on a spiritual quest. It was a light one, not too terribly deep because I'm not terribly deep and neither was my father which was the source of this spiritual quest. I started reading voraciously. I'm a voracious reader now. I read constantly. I saw Deepak Chopra on the 'Oprah' show. I'm very humble, not terrible lofty – I didn't come to this in any other way than my father's death was a source of tremendous pain. I saw him on 'Oprah' and I went, 'His philosophy and his writings speak to me.' It's in the way that Carl Sagan was to physics, and he's a scientist in his own right, but he also says, 'Come over here. If you like this you'll like this other stuff.' He's kind of like a great librarian, Deepak is. He led me to a whole bunch of readings across the board. I started reading from everywhere around the world, but what happened was that as I was telling my friends as they asked, 'What are you reading –' and I would say, 'This wonderful thing called "The Only Way Out Is In".' And this voice started happening and I went, 'Huh. What?' So I did a stage show in 1994. Five characters. For the first time I did Austin Powers and for the first time I did the Guru Pitka. Austin Powers was a tribute to my father and all the British comedy that he had introduced me to and the Guru Pitka was an extension of me dealing with my father's death. One dude that I wanted to see all of my success the universe had taken away from me and I didn't understand why. I would talk about intimacy and love without knowledge and knowledge without love and then love with knowledge and all of these things. Friends would call me up and say, 'I'm feeling depressed. Talk to me in the voice. 'You're a beautiful creature. The universe loves you.'

 

You’re very well versed in this stuff. What do you think about other philosophies like 'The Secret' and Eckhart Tolle?

 

Myers: I think it's very interesting. Eckhart Tolle. I have read 'The Power of Now'. I read that right out of the gate. I also read Gary Zukav's 'The Seat of the Soul'. That was another thing that I read. I also read the classics. I reintroduced myself to Kurt Vonnegut and all the great stuff he's written. He's probably the only author that I can say I've almost read everything of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. has written. There are a couple of the latter day books that I have yet to read. I started to read of this stuff and I think the sort of philosophy, the fictional philosophy in the movie that I created is called Drama which is distraction, regression, adjustment, maturity and action. The underpinnings of it are, and this took a long time, creating these fictional teachings, but with distraction you're distracted away from your emotional pain and brought to a place of calm. So you think about regressing to a time when you were a little kid and you were told things about yourself that aren't true anymore. It's the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is, 'I feel bad, dad.' Shame is, 'I am bad.' Shame is something that's given to you by your environment when you're a little kid. So you distract yourself out of your current pain and regress yourself to that time when what was written in your shame core – that's the first A. You are mature. You accept responsibility. Maturity is taking responsibility for your own health and happiness and you put all of it into action which is the second A. Distraction, regression, adjustment, maturity and action. That's drama. Drama is the philosophy that is what I believe which is that you're responsible for your own health and happiness. You're not a victim which is a vicious and insidious cognition. That's where I want to get to.

 

 Why Mariska Hargitay? Why not Anna Kournikova?

 

Myers: That's a good one too. Anna Kournikova. That's good. One of my best friends in New York, and he became my best friend because we were at a party and he said, 'I'm going to go home.' I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'I'm going to watch an old "Dick Van Dyke Show".' I was like, 'There are others.' I met Dick Van Dyke last night, we both did last night, and I couldn't talk. He's a God. His good friend is Mariska Hargitay. Eric Gilliland is his name. He's a writer for Roseanne. He was my main disciple in the stage show that I did in the last three years in New York City, the last five years in New York City. I said, 'I have this mythical teaching. I need a mythical salutation.' He went, 'Mariska Hargitay.' He said, 'That's it. Mariska Hargitay.' He kept saying it to me onstage and on the fifth show that I did Mariska Hargitay showed up because he's friends with Mariska Hargitay I'd like and go, 'There she is. There's Mariska Hargitay.' She came back stage and couldn't have been nicer about it. I called her about being in the movie and she said, 'Tell me and what to wear. I'm so in.' She was hilarious in the movie. About a week and a half ago she saw the film and she loved it which was super awesome. She sent me a t-shirt, an unauthorized t-shirt from the internet that says 'Mariska Hargitay. Mariska Hargitay.' So that's the Mariska Hargitay.

 

Were a lot of celebrities game to appear as disciples of Pitka?

 

Myers: Everyone came to play. Everyone got that this is a silly, silly movie that's just for fun that is I hope a great delivery system of a nice message and the nice message is that you have to love yourself. If you love yourself then you can invite others to love you. That's basically the message and you're responsible for your own health and happiness.

 

Was it difficult picking which songs you want for the movie?

 

Myers: No. It's a joy. I can't believe that I get to do this. It's unbelievably satisfying to go, 'You know what song I haven't heard in a long time and I love? "More Than Words".' 'Alright.' 'That's it? Great. Lets do it. Okay then, "Nine to Five" I love.' I've never stopped loving that song. 'The Joker' I loved. We had a band onstage that played sitar and the tabla, the drums, and they would play 'Nine to Five' and all these songs before I came out. This is a long time that we've had all these songs, but 'More Than Words' is one of those songs. I love that song.

 

Did you have to pull back in this film from playing more than one character?

 

Myers: I thought that I played three characters in the film. Me as the young American and then me as me. So I felt that was enough. I also don't have a personal mandate where I go, 'God, I have to play five characters.' These things are case by case.

 

Were there experiments with that CG before because it was so funny?

 

Myers: Oh, yeah. We wanted the head to be slightly bigger than it should be because it's funny. That's why. That was our measure for everything, whether it was funny or not. I love making comedy. I never stopped loving it. I will continue to love it and I can't believe that I get to do it.

 

What's going on for 'Shrek IV' and 'Walter Mitty'?

 

Myers: 'Walter Mitty' I'm not doing. And 'Shrek IV', I never know. You're not given a script. It's kind of like driving at night with headlights that are dipped very low. You can only see a little bit of the road ahead of you. So I don't really even know exactly what the story is and they don't either. It changes. It's a completely plastic and transformative process that bends and changes. It's a fascinating process of transformation. Where they think they're going at the beginning of the journey and where they land is never the same place. It's almost remarkable. I don't know how they do it. It's like 'Saturday Night Live'. I still don't know how Loren [Michaels] does it. I don't know how they move the cameras around. The studio is tiny. It was a radio studio. I don't know how they do it.

 

How long before we see in you in another live action movie?

 

Myers: I don't know. Could be another three to five years. It's a process. It's been on average three to five years because I write it and I develop it. I don't know. I'm making it up as I go along. I didn't go to school for this. My dad sold encyclopedias and my mom worked in the office of the factory. This is not the family business. It's something that I wanted to do as a kid and it's turned out a thousand million times better than I ever thought it would. I don't have a template for it and I don't have a master plan.

 

Do you have another 'Austin Powers' that you might want to do?

 

Myers: I have an idea, and again it's one of those things that will emerge or it won't. What's remarkable is not the stuff that I begin to develop which is usually at a ratio of about twenty to one, it's the stuff that gets born. That's what's a miracle to me. It's like, 'Wow. I got to make something again. This is crazy.'

 

What was your reaction by the negative response by Rajan Zed and all of those people?

 

Myers: This is a man who has not seen the film.

 

I thought that Paramount was going to do a screening for him?

 

Myers: No. They were never going to because this is a film about DRAMA. I'll show it to those of the DRAMA community of which there is no one because it's completely fictional. The teachings are like The Force in 'Star Wars' and it's like country of Ferdonia in the Marx Brother's movies. This is a fictional teaching that's so designed. The teaching is designed to be non-denominational and fictional and in a fantasy world. This is the design of it. He has not seen the film. So I can't really comment except that it's about DRAMA.

 

Can you comment on your man-crush on Justin Timberlake?

 

Myers: Is that a shock to anyone? He's unbelievably talented. He's the most talented human being that I've ever met.

 

Not at Connect Four apparently. He said he's bad at that.

 

Myers: What an amazingly humble admission. Wow.

 

The Wayne’s World skit with Dana [Carvey] was awesome. Did that reenergize talks about doing something else with those characters?

 

Myers: I don't have any plans. If an idea emerges and we're all excited to do it, but again I don't know how these things get born. I'll tell you that I loved it. I had such a great time. That's all I know.

 

Party time! Excellent! Especially when you e-mail: george@latinoreview.com!!

Source:Latinoreview

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