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 47) Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
Years active	1975–present
Influences	Peter Sellers, Dan Aykroyd, John Cleese, Chevy Chase
Spouse	Robin Ruzan (1993–2005) (divorced)
Notable works and roles	Saturday Night Live Wayne's World Wayne's World 2 So I Married an Axe Murderer Austin Powers Shrek

Michael John "Mike" Myers (born May 25, 1963) is a 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, and Shrek.

Personal life

Myers was born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, the son of Alice E. (née Hind; b. 1926), an office supervisor who was formerly in the Royal Air Force, and Eric Myers (1922–1991), who worked in the insurance business and previously was a Royal Engineer in the British Army.^[1][2] Both of his parents are from Liverpool, England. He has two older brothers, Peter and Paul Myers, the latter of whom is an indie rock singer-songwriter, broadcaster and author. Myers 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. He began working in commercials at age eight, and at ten 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 joined Second City Theatre. Later, he left Second City to tour Britain with comedian Neil Mullarkey.

Mike is a Dungeons & Dragons player^[5] and was one of several celebrities to have participated in the Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day in 2006.^[6]

He was married to Robin Ruzan from 1993 until their divorce in 2005.

Myers has played for Hollywood United F.C., a celebrity studded U.S. football team.^[7] He played in the 2010 Soccer Aid for UNICEF UK football match, England vs. R.O.W (Rest of the World) and successfully scored his penalty during a sudden death shootout after the game ended 2-2 (June 6, 2010). The Rest of the World team beat England for the first time since the tournament started.

Career

Early career

One of Myers's 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. Myers then attended Tufts University where he played football and lacrosse. He was the team captain of both before quitting school to pursue his acting career. 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's popular movie series. The Wayne Campbell character was featured extensively in the 1986 summer series "It's Only Rock & Roll" produced by Toronto's Insight Production Company for CBC Television. Wayne appeared both in studio and in a series of location sketches directed and edited by Allan Novak. Myers wrote another sketch, Kurt and Dieter co-starring with Second City's Dana Andersen and also directed by Novak, which would later turn into the popular "Sprockets" sketch on Saturday Night Live.

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's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Film

In 1992, Myers and Dana Carvey adapted Wayne's World a near bio of Myers's life growing up in Scarborough, Ontario listening to Max Webster, Kim Mitchell, Rush, and other Canadian rock artists into a full-length motion picture based on the SNL sketch. The movie turned out to be one of Myers's 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. That year Myers also starred in So I Married an Axe Murderer which garnered a cult following. After Wayne's World 2, Myers took a hiatus from television. The characters in the movie were based on people Myers knew growing up in the Bridlewood section of Scarborough.

After four year hiatus from television, Myers returned to acting in 1997 with the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, then a sequel in 1999, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, finally topping it off with Austin Powers in Goldmember in 2002. Myers played both the title role and the villain, as well as other characters, in all three Austin Powers films. In 1998, he played one of his rare non-comedic roles in the film 54: Steve Rubell, proprietor of New York City's famous Studio 54, a 1970s discotheque. The film was moderately successful, and Myers's performance was widely praised. Myers later parodied the club as "Studio 69" 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 did not 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 4-D in 2003, Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek The Third, and the Christmas special Shrek The Halls, both in 2007. In 2010 Myers returned for what is apparently the last in the Shrek series, Shrek Forever After. 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 2005, Myers was signed on to play the lead role in the upcoming biopic of The Who drummer Keith Moon.^[8] The film would be produced by Roger Daltrey and Nigel Sinclair.

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 various 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.

Filmography

Awards

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.
• For contributions to the motion picture industry, Mike Myers was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7042 Hollywood Boulevard.^[9]
• He was awarded the Lucille Ball Legacy of Laughter Award at the 2008 TV Land Awards. His award was presented to him by Justin Timberlake, his co-star of The Love Guru.
• He was personally nominated for 2 Razzie Awards in 2008, winning Worst Actor and Worst Screenplay for The Love Guru. The film also won Worst Film and secured 4 other nominations.
• In 2003 he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.^[10]

Notable characters

The following characters were created and played by Myers:

• Dieter (SNL) - host of Sprockets
• Linda Richman (SNL) - hostess of Coffee Talk
• Simon (SNL) - 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 (So I Married an Axe Murderer)
• Charlie McKenzie (So I Married an Axe Murderer)
• Middle-Aged Man (SNL) - An older man who helps young people with their problems.
• Austin Powers (the Austin Powers films)
• Dr. Evil (the 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 (Featured in The Night of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Event for Autism Education) - An eccentric billionaire that requests buying the rights to name autism after himself.
• Guru Pitka (The Love Guru)
• Shrek - (the Shrek films)
• Gen. Ed Fenech (Inglourious Basterds)

References

External links

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