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Mike Myers Revisits Scenes from Austin Powers, Wayne's World and Shrek

Mike Myers sits down to watch his own movies on VHS. Throwback, we know. Watch as he revisits scenes from Wayne's World, Austin Powers, Shrek and The Pentaverate, and gives his perspective on what it was like to work with Beyoncé, the fight for the rights to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, and Shrek's Scottish accent. The Pentaverate is currently streaming on Netflix

Released on 05/24/2022

Transcript

Beyonce was a dream.

She was the loveliest person in the world

and just knocked it out of the park.

She would always listen to music, and she said to me,

Mike what are you listening to right now?

And I said, Oh, I'm just listening

to led Zeppelin at the moment.

And she went, I think I'll listen to that Led Zeppelin.

She had never heard of it.

She was so young and the whole crew was like, Aw!

And then the next day, she was doing this,

and I said, What are you listening to?

She went, Led Zeppelin. They're great.

I'm Mike Myers, and I'm gonna revisit some

of my scenes from throughout my career.

All right.

[bright electronic music]

[VHS clicks] [upbeat 80s music]

[tape whines] [button clicks]

Okay, I still live with my parents,

which I admit is both bogus and sad,

but at least I've got an amazing.

Canadians have this rise at the end,

so every statement sounds like a question.

So even if it's snowing obviously,

they'll go, It's snowing?

I've got an amazing cable access show,

and I still know how to party.

Linguistically, it's called the Canadian rise,

which is I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna talk.

Then it goes down, and that means it's your turn to talk.

So it's like, The other day,

a guy came up to me, and he was really mad.

Now it's your turn to talk 'cause I went down,

and that's the accent for Wayne.

But I put it in Chicago 'cause there's an Aurora in Chicago,

and there's an Aurora just north of Toronto.

Ah, the Mirth Mobile.

[engine rumbles] [brakes squeak]

You had no money, so I thought the most that they

could get is an AMC Pacer, and then they would put flames,

decals of flames coming out of the wheel well.

♪ I see a little silhouetto of a man ♪

♪ Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango ♪

♪ Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening ♪

But what I remember most about this

was fighting very, very hard

for it to be Bohemian Rhapsody,

and they didn't wanna do it.

They wanted to do Guns N' Roses, which I love Guns N' Roses,

but I didn't have anything funny for it.

And then Lorne was like, You really want it?

I went, Yeah.

So Lorne fought for it on my behalf, Lorne Michaels,

and Dana and I talked about five days ago

about our neck still hurt from

♪ Ba ba ba bom bom bom bom bom ♪

That was easily 200 takes over two nights in, oh, some town.

I wanna say El Segundo or Cerritos outside of Los Angeles,

but I just couldn't believe I was in a movie.

[soft haunting choral music]

It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

What was so much fun about this scene was the director,

Penelope Spheeris,

who I fought very hard to be the director,

even though she didn't have any comedy credits,

she had done The Decline of the Western Civilization,

a documentary about heavy metal

that was so incredibly awesome and authentic.

I knew that she would get the heavy metal part of it,

and she knocked it outta the park.

[VHS clicks] [upbeat 80s music]

[tape whines] [button clicks]

Au contraire, baby. I think you can't resist me.

[I Touch Myself]

♪ You're the one who makes me come running ♪

I'd always liked the Divinyls.

I just couldn't believe there was a song

called I Touch Myself, which,

just to be honest, I may be blushing.

♪ You're the sun who makes me shine ♪

♪ When you're around ♪

There's something about sexuality that is corny.

People get very, very serious about their sexiness,

and to me, it always makes me laugh

because it's almost too arch.

You know what I mean?

So overt sexuality makes me laugh

and especially like really contrived,

dirty jokes make me laugh.

The Fembots is something,

it's a little bit from Six Million Dollar Man,

and it's a little bit from one of the Matt Helm movies,

but I needed somehow to show that he has mojo.

♪ I get down on my knees ♪ [Fembots trill]

♪ I do anything for you ♪

The reveal of the chest hair was just, when I was a kid,

marveling at Sean Connery being part man, part beast,

a crazy amount of chest hair.

He had a pelt, if you will, more than chest hair.

That scene was choreographed by a fantastic choreographer,

Marguerite Derrick, who did all of the choreography

for all the Austin Powers films, an absolute genius

because what she would do is go, What do you got?

I took jazz dancing and tap as a child in Toronto.

I would show her in my moves.

Very, very influenced by Fosse.

♪ Eyes, and see you before me ♪

♪ Think I would die if you ♪

I had a fantastic prop man named Eugene McCarthy,

and every prop that I had, Eugene McCarthy made it funnier,

more user friendly,

just better than anything I could've imagined.

So these are one of the first movies I was doing,

and I was very, very spoiled

by just what great artists I got a chance to work with,

like Marguerite Derrick and Eugene McCarthy

and Jay Roach and all of the people.

[VHS clicks] [upbeat 80s music]

[tape whines] [button clicks]

Excellent, Basil.

We've been trying for years to get a mole

inside Dr. Evil's lair, and we now have that mole.

Yes. Ah, and here he is.

[footsteps shuffle] [percussive military music]

So you're the

[camera whooshes up close]

mole.

Now, the reason I did the mole joke

is that I just recently had it removed,

but I had a giant mole on my face,

and I had just gotten on Saturday Night Live,

and these college girls, like mean girls, right?

Were walking by.

I was looking in the window and they went,

That looks like Mike Myers.

And I said, [indistinct] did like that.

She goes, That's not Mike Myers.

He's got that big ugly mole on his face.

And I was like, every time said it,

[laughs] it was like I got smacked to the face.

Yeah, you've never seen that mole?

That big ugly mole? Yeah, he's got a mole.

And they said it like 20 times,

and so it always just stayed in my head.

Moly, moly, moly.

[birds chirp]

Mole.

[footsteps shuffle]

Mole. Oh shut up!

[doors slide open] [footsteps shuffle]

Moly, moly, moly, moly, moly!

That was improvised.

One of the things with Jay Roach, the director,

is we always get the scripted take,

and then we get a series

for what we call shizzies and gizzies.

It's just to see what we got.

We more often than not will pull from that take,

usually to button the scene.

[VHS clicks] [upbeat 80s music]

[tape whines] [button clicks]

Listen, little donkey, take a look at me! What am I?

[brook babbles] [birds chirp]

Really tall? No! I'm an ogre!

You know.

Fairy tales were about the class system.

You know what I mean?

You had worker people,

and then you had this people who were,

for no reason, the king and queen.

They weren't elected or anything.

So I always thought that ogres were working people,

growing up as a working person.

I tried it as a Canadian, and it just didn't have any oomph.

And then I said, Can I record it again as Scottish?

Because I know fairy tales are a Eurocentric form.

Scottish people are near and dear to me.

I have relatives in Scotland and background in Scottish,

and they're working people.

It's a working people accent.

And they went, No, we like it the way it is,

and I said, Oh, come on, just let me.

Steven Spielberg said, Well, why don't you try it once?

Okay, okay, but one night only.

Ah, thank you!

He sent me a lovely letter, Stephen Spielberg saying,

You're so right.

It's way better as Scottish. Thank you so much.

They spent some money but not the amount of money

that has bene reported in the press, I'd like to point out.

And by the way, I recorded it all for free one more time

and just happy to do so 'cause I wanted it to be good,

and there we have Shrek being Scottish.

This is gonna be fun.

We can stay up late swapping manly stories,

and in the morning, I'm making waffles.

[Shrek growls]

Where do I sleep?

I never saw Eddie Murphy until the press junket,

but I fell in love with Donkey,

just hearing his voice to the headphones

and then when you start to see the animation,

and I love that character, Donkey,

and I wish Donkey lived in my house.

I love that character so much.

[VHS clicks] [upbeat 80s music]

[tape whines] [button clicks]

Y'all just kidnapped a black man.

We've been kidnapping white men for years.

We want to give you an opportunity as well.

What if the world was run by five people?

But what if they were nice and not evil,

that they were a benevolent secret society?

I guess that's the Canadian in me

who has a eternal trust of government

'cause government's been very good to this Canadian.

And what if a very unlikely local Canadian newscaster

was the only person who could uncover the Pentaverate,

who must never be exposed?

I wanted to make something silly and fun

and something that's cinematic and has big sets

and helicopters and stuff like that

because those are the type of movies

that I grew up on and I love.

And I wanted to make something that is a little

like how British TV where they make six

and then go, That's it unless we wanna do more,

but it's designed to be six.

Basically, we're the good guys. We want you to trust us.

Why should I trust you, white man?

Whiter man? Older whiter man?

I don't know what the hell to make outta you.

The world is a little anti-expert right now,

and the basic thing I just wanted to say

was it's a high tide that floats all boats, expertise.

Everybody benefits from smart people and experts,

but the experts need to serve the people,

and the people need to trust the experts.

But it's way sillier than that.

Everything I love doing with Austin Powers.

I was on Saturday Night Live.

I did a character called Lothar of the Hill People,

and it's always, Holy shit, there's Lothar!

And I'm like, Of everything I've done, [laughs]

Lothar of the Hill People is the one,

and I always go, Yes, I am.

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