Mike Myers (actor)

Mike Myers
Myers at the Shrek the Third London premiere in June 2007
Birth name	Michael John Myers
Born	May 25, 1963 (1963-05-25) (age 46) Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	British-Canadian
Influences	Peter Sellers, the entire original cast of Saturday Night Live (especially Dan Aykroyd), Monty Python (especially John Cleese)
Spouse	Robin Ruzan (1993 – 2005)
Notable works and roles	Saturday Night Live Wayne's World Austin Powers Shrek The Love Guru
Emmy Awards
Writing In A Variety, Music Or Comedy Program 1989 Saturday Night Live
American Comedy Awards
Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture (Leading Role) 2000 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Michael John "Mike" Myers (born May 25, 1963) is a British-Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter and film producer. He was a long-time cast member on the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s and the early 1990s and starred as the title characters in the films Wayne's World, Austin Powers, Shrek, and The Love Guru.

Personal background

Myers was born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, the son of Alice (née Hind), an office supervisor who was formerly in the RAF, and Eric Myers (died in 1991), who worked in the insurance business and previously was a cook for the British Army.^[1][2] Both of his parents are from Liverpool. His older brother Paul is an indie rock singer-songwriter, broadcaster and author. He is of English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry,^[3] and was raised Protestant.^[4] He attended Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute but then changed schools and went to Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario. Myers also attended Second City at the age of 19. He began working in commercials at age eight, and at nine he made a commercial for British Columbia Hydro Electric with Gilda Radner playing his mother. He was a very popular person in his school. During high school, to make girls laugh, he would go into the Wayne’s World character that later came to be known as Wayne Campbell. The day he finished his high school finals he got into Second City. Later, he left Second City to tour England with comedian Neil Mullarkey.

Career

Early career

One of Myers' first acting jobs was in a TV commercial when he was ten years old.^[2] Gilda Radner played his mother. A few months later, according to Myers, his brother was teasing him about his "girlfriend (Radner) being on some stupid show on Saturday." Myers swore that one day, he too would be on that show.

Myers graduated from high school in 1982 and was immediately accepted into the Second City Canadian Touring Company, after which he moved to the UK where in 1985 he was one of the founding members of The Comedy Store Players, an improvisational group based at The Comedy Store in London. The next year, he starred in the British children's TV program Wide Awake Club, parodying the show's normal exuberance with his own "Sound Asleep Club", in partnership with Neil Mullarkey. He returned to Toronto and Second City in 1986 as a cast member in the Second City's Toronto main stage show. In 1988 he moved from Second City in Toronto to Chicago. In Chicago, he trained and performed at the Improv Olympic. He made numerous appearances, including as Wayne Campbell, on Toronto's Citytv in the early 1980s, on the alternative video show "City Limits" hosted by Christopher Ward. Myers also appeared as his Wayne Campbell character in the music video for Ward's Canadian hit "Boys and Girls". Later, Ward would appear as one of Austin Powers' band members in Ming Tea in Myers' popular movie series. Myers has played for Hollywood United F.C., a celebrity studded U.S. soccer team.^[5]

Saturday Night Live

Main article: Saturday Night Live

He was a member of the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live television program from 1989 to 1995, where he performed characters such as Simon, Dieter, Linda Richman, and Wayne Campbell from Wayne's World.

Mike Myers' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Film

In 1992, Myers and comedian Dana Carvey adapted Wayne's World into a full-length motion picture based on the SNL sketch. The movie turned out to be one of Myers' greatest successes and one of the few Saturday Night Live-based films to be considered worthwhile by both audiences and film critics. It was among the most successful movies of the year and the following year a sequel was released - Wayne's World 2. Myers also starred in So I Married an Axe Murderer that same year. In 1997, Myers introduced Austin Powers in the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery later coming out with his sequel in 1999 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me then finally topping it off with Austin Powers: Goldmember. Myers played both the title role and the villain (as well as other characters) in all three Austin Powers films. The same year, he played one of his rare non-comedic roles in the film 54 where he played Steve Rubell, proprietor of New York City's famous Studio 54 (a 1970s discotheque). The film was moderately successful, and Myers' performance was widely praised. Myers later parodied the club as "Studio 69" in 2002's Austin Powers in Goldmember.

In June 2000, Myers was sued by Universal Pictures for $3.8 million for backing out of a contract to play Dieter, the SNL character, in a feature film. Myers said he refused to honor the $20 million contract because he didn't want to cheat moviegoers with an unacceptable script - one that he himself had written. Myers countersued, and a settlement was reached after several months where Myers agreed to make another film with Universal. That film would be The Cat in the Hat, released in November 2003 and starring Myers as the title character. In 2001, Myers played the title character in the DreamWorks animated film Shrek (2001). He reprised this role in Shrek 3-D in 2003, Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek The Third, and the Christmas special Shrek The Halls, both in 2007.

Myers is a member of the band Ming Tea along with Bangles guitarist and vocalist Susanna Hoffs and musician Matthew Sweet. They performed the songs BBC and Daddy Wasn't There for the Austin Powers movies.

In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. As of September 29, Myers has been signed on to play the lead role in the upcoming biopic of The Who drummer Keith Moon. The film will be produced by Roger Daltrey, Nigel Sinclair, and Paul Gerber.

During a CBS interview in 2007, Myers noted that he normally takes three years between films. He spends one year "living his life" and then writes multiple screenplays, develops characters, practices them in front of live audiences, and then selects one of the screenplays to film. Myers noted that this was the Marx Brothers' procedure for developing their film material.

Myers received the MTV Generation award in June 2007, making him the 2nd Canadian to win the award (Jim Carrey was the first in 2006), for bringing his unique style of comedy to small and big screens alike.

In June 2008, Myers's film The Love Guru met with negative reviews, prompting cable news network MSNBC to brand Myers "The Antifunny" in its June 24, 2008 online news edition.

In August 2008, it was announced that Mike Myers had been cast as Gen. Ed Fenech in Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge film Inglourious Basterds. ^[6]

Filmography

Awards

Mike Myers has won the following awards:

• Four American Comedy Awards (Best Film Performance (Male) and Best Writing in 2003 and 2000, for Austin Powers in Goldmember and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, respectively)
• The 2000 American Comedy Award for Best Lead Actor for The Spy Who Shagged Me.
• An Emmy Award in 1989 for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program, for Saturday Night Live. He has also been nominated for two other Emmy Awards.
• He has won seven MTV Movie Awards.
• Nominated for the Worst Actor and Worst Screen Couple Razzie Awards in 2004, for The Cat in the Hat.
• He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005. It is located at 7046 Hollywood Blvd., near Sycamore.

Notable characters

The following characters were created and played by Myers:

• Dieter (Saturday Night Live)
• Linda Richman (SNL)
• Simon (Saturday Night Live) - a little boy who does drawings in the bath and complains about having "prune hands" (the theme song for this segment was a slightly modified version of the theme song from "Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings" by Edward MacLachlan)
• Wayne Campbell (SNL, the Wayne's World films)
• Pat Arnold (SNL, Bill Swerski's Superfans)
• Stuart Rankin (SNL, proprietor of "All Things Scottish")
• Stuart McKenzie (virtually the same character, So I Married an Axe Murderer)
• Charlie McKenzie (So I Married an Axe Murderer)
• Middle-Aged Man (Saturday Night Live) - An older man who helps young people with their problems.
• Austin Powers (the Austin Powers films)
• Dr. Evil (all three Austin Powers films)
• Fat Bastard (Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember)
• Goldmember (Austin Powers in Goldmember)
• Donald Q. Cashington, Jr. III - An eccentric billionaire that requests buying the rights to name autism after himself. (Featured in The Night of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Event for Autism Education)
• Guru Pitka - (The Love Guru)

References

External links

• Mike Myers (actor) on National Public Radio in 2008
• Mike Myers at the Internet Movie Database
• Mike Myers at TV.com