Weekly Hornet

Issue date: 5/7/08 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Courtesy Paramount Pictures

Media Credit: Courtesy Paramount Pictures

Mike Myers is a comedic man among men. He's passionate about all of his movies, which he spends loads of time hand-crafting. "The Love Guru" is Myers' first original character in six years (since the last "Austin Powers" movie). Myers discusses the origins of this newest character. Jessica Alba co-stars with the comedic genius and talks about holding her own with the improv comic.

The Hornet: What gave you the idea for your character and the plot for the "Love Guru"?

Mike Myers: The idea came from, strangely enough, when my father died in 1991 and I went on a spiritual quest. I started to become very interested in a lot of philosophies, especially Eastern philosophy. [Spirituality] is a very interesting world because often these people have no sense of humor what so ever. What I love about Deepak [Chopra] and Gary Zukoff is that they understand that to be enlightened is to in fact, lighten up.

TH: What made you want to go and create a completely new and original character for yourself that you could immerse yourself in?

MM:That's what I've done since the start of my career. With [the character of] Linda Richman, It's being in New York on Saturday Night Live and hearing that beautiful accent. With Austin Powers, I was driving home from hockey practice and I heard the song, "The Look of Love" by Burt Bacharach. And the entire movie came into my head. My hero growing up and my dad's hero growing up was Peter Sellers and if there's anybody that I have a career most like it is Peter Sellers'. And my art form is immersion, so this is no different than anything else I've done.

TH: What are some things you do on or off set to get into character?

MM:Well, I stay in character all day, it's kind of an odd thing. I believe in total commitment and just trying to make every aspect of the film as funny and as cool as it can be because you only live once.

TH: How do you feel about comedy today, with movies such as "Meet the Spartans" and one end of the spectrum and films such as "Juno" on the other end?

MM:I'm not an analyzer of the industry. My movies are more handmade. I often wonder if I'm actually in show business to be honest with you. I live in New York City and I write my stuff in my apartment. I never go to Los Angeles. Like I'm in show business, but I'm not really in show business. I make stuff that makes me laugh and I hope other people like it too. All you can do is express yourself, work your hardest and hope people like what it is that you've made.

TH: What characteristics did you learn about yourself and our characters that enlightened your personal life?

MM:Everything I do is autobiographical in some form, either directly or indirectly. Even a character like Dieter (from Saturday Night Live), there's a side of me that has artistic aspirations that would want to be taken seriously as an artist. With Linda Richman, I love New York more than anything and I wanted to express my love for New York that way [though that character]. With Wayne's World, it's about heavy metal. I loved heavy metal, Zeppelin, Aerosmith. With Austin Powers, it's about everything that I grew up with in a British household. My parents are from Liverpool.

TH:You're infamous for ad-libbing. How much of this movie did you ad-lib and is there a process to ad-libbing?

MM:You spend hours and hours trying to make the script as tight, as funny and as meaningful as possible. Then when you get out there and you're on your feet, stuff occurs to you. If you're smart, you build that into the day. Almost everything I did as Dr. Evil is improvise. I mean, he's the bad guy and all he does is threaten the world, it's not really a lot of writing. I know no other way to do it, I did it in all the movies; "Austin Powers," "Wayne's World." It's sort of a process, a very joyful process.

TH:Knowing that Mike Myers has a tendency to improv, did you find it difficult to keep up with him when he did, or did you find it challenging and fun?

Jessica Alba:It was so much fun. I never know what's going to work and not really knowing how the day is going to go and it being unpredictable and you fly by the seat of your pants is most fun to me. It keeps the energy up and keeps it interesting.

TH:How do you hold your own whenever you're on screen with a comedian such as Myers or Dane Cook? Is there ever any kind of pressure to perform and keep up?

JA:With Dane [Cook] it was a little less nerve racking because luckily…it was his first movie he was staring in and my first comedy so we were both figuring things out. But, with Mike [Myers] he is a veteran, so… I obviously wanted to hold my own and keep up with him, certainly when I was improving, making sure that I stayed quick on my feet and witty. It's much more intimidating with someone like Mike Myers that has coined basically phase of my life. "Wayne's World," to "So I Married An Ax Murderer," to, you know, the Austin Powers movies.

TH:What made you want to return to comedy, so to speak, with the recent movies "Good Luck Chuck," and "The Love Guru"?

JA:Well, I wanted to do comedy, [but] no one would give me a shot at it. I couldn't even get into rooms to audition for comedy because everyone thought I was, you know, too tough, or played superheroes and larger than life characters. "Good Luck Chuck" was kind of my shot showing people that I could do it and thank God people enjoyed it. Then Mike [Myers] asked me to be in this movie and that's how it went down.

TH:What type of film do you prefer acting in, comedies or dramatic movies?

JA:Comedies are really challenging, I think it's the toughest job to tackle because when people go to see a comedy they expect to have at least one moment where they are holding their stomachs from laughing so hard or tears [run] down their face from laughing so hard and if you don't give them at least one moment of that in a comedy then it's a stinker. So, it's hard to insure that is going to happen.

TH:Did you always have acting in mind as a career?

JA:I did, yeah. I mean, I graduated [high school at 16] because I was working and I was tutored and I didn't have any school breaks. So, when most kids get summer breaks and they get Christmas vacation and all those things, I didn't have any of that. I was just doing school…with a tutor all the way through, so I just finished early. I finished early in order to give myself two years of working and trying to make it in the business.

TH:Over the last year, you've had 6 films released and now that you've had your baby, Honor Marie, are you going to keep up the same work pace?

JA:I'm taking time off. I worked about two years straight. And, you know, it takes a toll on you, doing that much and working so hard. I'm really grateful that I got the opportunity to do everything that I did. But, I'm excited to kind of hang out and I haven't really been reading scripts.

TH:Myers, being a native of Canada is a big hockey fan. Through filming this movie, which revolves around hockey and hockey player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco), did you become a hockey fan?

JA:Even if you like watching hockey or enjoy the sport, nothing compares to a true Canadian fan. I mean, it's a lifestyle, it's in the blood. I can't fairly say to a Canadian I'm a true fan, but I do defiantly have an appreciation for it. I totally enjoy watching the game.

"The Love Guru" is in theaters June 20 and stars Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco and Verne Troyer.

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