While the distressing death of his father Eric in 1991 provided the inspiration behind Mike Myers' most famous characters, including spy Austin Powers and as his newest film persona, the Love Guru, his stint on NBC's sketch show Saturday Night Live has honed him to become the versatile comedian that he is now.

‘‘I usually have 10 to 20 ideas that I'm thinking about at a time.  When you're on Saturday Night Live you develop a notebook of characters.  I have a great job that way, where things can bubble up,'' Mike Myers told the Herald Sun.

Myers was a long-time cast member on Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, where he performed characters such as Simon, Dieter, Linda Richman, and Wayne Campbell from Wayne's World.  Last month, he returned to the program, where many of his iconic characters started, to introduce his most memorable sketches in front of a live studio audience as Saturday Night Live presents “The Best of Mike Myers.”

‘‘[Saturday Night Live creator] Lorne Michaels used to say there's a blues song called ‘How am I Going to Miss You if You Never Go Away.'  I'm not much interested in just having my name out there. I'm very interested in making comedies -- I love it and I feel very grateful to have had the chance to do this,” he said.

‘‘It's gone unbelievably way better than I ever thought it would go,” Myers added.

Myers' next feature, following The Love Guru, is an installment of the cartoon franchise, Shrek Goes Fourth, which starts production later this year.  However, Myers reveals that he has no idea what the movie is about.

‘‘You never see a script -- what the movie starts as and what it ends as ultimately you wouldn't believe it,” he said.  It's such an amazingly transformative process.  At first I'm recording entirely by myself and then I start to hear Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas.  It's like hearing old friends.  You have to really, really use all your powers of make-believe to try to go into this world with Princess Fiona.”


-Kris De Leon, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: The Herald Sun
(Image courtesy of Wire Image)