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Two hands went up.
Get in my belly!
I grew up in government-subsidized housing near Toronto.
My parents were immigrants from England.
Both of them met in amateur dramatics, and my dad revered comedians.
My sons name is Spike, based on Spike Milligan, and my dads name was Spike as well.
I never thought Id be a part of culture.
Here in the crowd right now is Jay Roach, the director ofAustin Powers.
It doesnt require any money.
For me, culture is that when a comedy was on at home, our house smelled nicer.
It was a universal truth.
It binds you to the rest of the world.
Freud said that laughter is an ensemble process.
The character of Wayne Campbell inWaynes Worldemerged from your early years on Canadian television.
In Canada, instead of saying, Punks rule, okay?!
they say Punks rule, okay Mom?!
Well gum you more than bite you.
And things you do in Canada dont go against your career, you know?
Its a place to get your 10,000 hours.
Heres an example of you playing Wayne from 40 years ago on the Canadian showCity Limits.
That was improvised at 3:30 in the morning on Canadian TV.
At that point, you had been doing Wayne for a few years.
How were you approaching him?I wanted the character to have knowledge you wouldnt expect he might have.
I have a few comedy heroes.
Peter Sellers is absolutely one of them.
He saw no difference between dramatic acting and comedic acting.
You think about the great Phil Hartman.
It was total commitment.
But comedy acting has chord changes between moods faster than what exists in life.
If youre doing a dramatic play, you have to build up to the change.
In comedy, it can be Ha ha ha,now get the fuck out.
That change is the .01 percent impurity where its not verisimilitude.
But at the same time, I didnt want to hang out with the eggheads.
I wanted to hang out with the party animals.
Over time, did the character become more like you?No.
It actually became more sentimental and about how I love Canada.
I could only tape one thing, and of course it was going to be the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In England, nobody had heard ofSaturday Night Live.
I was like,Hmm.
That was his whole thing.
Then he started saying, after he gave an address, Isnt that special?
And I turned to Dave and said, What the fuck is that?
And he said, Thats a line from Dana Carvey.
I said, Whos Dana Carvey?
and he said, Hes onSaturday Night Live.You should check it out.
So I checked it out and thought,Oh my God, thats really funny.But I had no idea.
When I got toSaturday Night Liveand saw how fucking good these guys were, I was scared shitless.
I had an anxiety attack.
Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Jan Hooks; it was unbelievable.
It was chair stomps and whistles; it was a jet taking off.
I dont know what happened, but the audience just loved it.
I said, Aurora it is!
Id always wanted to makeWaynes Worlda movie.
I saw it as aworld.
I think that comedy is production design and comedy movies are worlds.
Theyre immaculate universes that they bring you into.
I love being immersed in a comedic world.
That was about it.
[Crowd applause]I didnt die recently, did I?
In the first script forWaynes World, the song in that scene was Led Zeppelins Whole Lotta Love.
How did you land on Bohemian Rhapsody?Well, its one of the greatest rock songs ever.
It has a strange operatic quality.
And everybody was assigned a Galileo.
That was the big thing, and we had fights if you took my Galileo.
It was originally going to be a long operetta.
My thinking was that when you seeWaynes WorldonSaturday Night Live, its the basement.
So in the movie, we will literally take you up to the top.
and then it got chopped and chopped and chopped.
So the story is They wanted Guns N Roses.
The studio wanted Guns N Roses.I am a Guns N Roses fan.
I just didnt have anything funny for it.
I just had a knowing, you know what I mean?
I never thought Id ever be discovered.
I thought I was going to have to discover myself.
Why not go down swinging?
So thats what I wanted to do.
And to Lornes credit, he said [in Lorne voice] The boy has a passion for it.
Lets get his song.
I didnt think it necessitated a sequel.
Jay and I spent a tremendous amount of time withAustin Powersdetermining why we wanted the audience to come back.
We wanted to honor them for having seen the first one and then the first two.
We made sure that you understand why youre being brought back to this world.
I didnt know whyWaynes Worldneeded to come back.
I had an entirely different idea.
It was gonna be that Wayne gets his own country and its the first heavy-metal state.
The first heavy-metal state.
Ill write this, but you have to get the rights for it.
They said, Fine, go ahead and write it.
I mentionedPassport to Pimlicoin every meeting.
And so I rewrote it in ten weeks, and thats the story ofWaynes World 2.
I had a choice: Do I go, Fuck, I dont want to do it?
Super, super local.
That movie came out in 1993, and you leftSNLearly in 1995.
Then there was a period of inactivity.
or being from Sweden or anything like that?
You know, all that stuff that now youre like, Mmm, really?
I loved James Bond.
And I thought thats what I wanna do, a character like that.
I studied James Bond movies inside and out, and I knew all the tropes.
Its commonly believed that Dr.
Evil was based on Lorne Michaels.
When you had the idea of Dr.
Evil, did you think of Lorne right away?No, it was Donald Pleasance forever.
The truth behind the cliches.
All the questions that never get answered on those.
I was going to put it up at Edinburgh and ended up doing a show with Mullarkey.
And the Lorne of it?The Lorne of it is just a little tiny overlay.
He had an educated Canadian accent, and I have a Scarborough accent.
One time he goes, Mike, do you want to come up to the Hamptons?
I was like, Am I fired?
I went, and it was like, Thats Micks room, or do you want Keiths room?
And I was like, Eithers fine.
So anyway, were there and he has this big dinner with everybody.
And my joke was, Theres the man who invented the question mark.
And over there, he owns Lake Ontario.
Next to him is the man who invented the pregnant pause, or so I … think.
Meanwhile, Im like Hi!
All these people are so crazy!
I see those parties across the lake and that big green light!
It got a big laugh, and Lorne looked around like, Hmm.
All Bond villains tell you everything.
They all have an affliction.
And then he goes, Look at me, Im a freak!
and hes in no way a freak.
The Get in my belly Fat Bastard run was not in the original script.
What was that day like when you were in character improvising as him?Fun!
Making comedies is fun, dude!
We would execute the scene as scripted and then do a shizzies and gizzies take.
Shits and giggles, one thats more improvised.
Your movies are filled with people who speak using distinctive language.
Like Get in mah belly?
That was an improv.
It wasnt like Ladies and gentlemen, my next catchphrase … Get in mah belly!
Ill say one thing about catchphrases.
Dana used to do this really fucking funny thing hed take a stab at torture Lorne.
Hed go, Mike, I got another sketch for you!
Just go with it.
So he invented a catchphrase, which was Hey Bill!
What are you doing?
Just to fuck with Lorne.
I dont think it’s possible for you to invent catchphrases in a lab.
Goldmemberwas inspired by aReal Sexepisode on HBO and seeing a Dutch man who ran a swingers club.
How does that happen?I was obsessed with that episode.
I knew it could be something often the Bond villains have another Bond villain.
I also had a Dutch soccer coach, and I didnt realize they shush when they talk.
Thish short of thing like thish.
The Scottish accent we all associate with Shrek was not the first one you used.
Thicker than I have.
(READ A ROOM.)
And then he said, Mike, would you ever do an animated movie?
and I go Sure.
And he goes, Well, we have an animated movie.
And I go, Well, thats the worst fucking title Ive ever heard in my life.
Its the sound you make after drinking too many Molson Canadians.
So he said, Just come down and see it.
So I saw it and I liked that it turned fairy tales on its head.
I thought that was really, really smart.
The fairy tale is a Eurocentric form, dealing with class, right?
So I tried it and just didnt connect to it.
I didnt do a very good job.
Nothing had been animated, and I thought,Im not connecting to that either.
Everyone looked at their shoes.
I said, No, but seriously, really?
I get in the parking lot, and I go, I think this was Farleys.
I was right, but they didnt tell me.
Scottish people are working class, and its in that Euroworld, you know what I mean?
Jeffrey said, No, I like what youre doing.
I said, I dont, Jeffrey.
He goes, No, its fine.
We have to spend so much money to reanimate!
It was all wire-frame where its like [imitating the motions of the first render] Donkey!
Whats going on there?
You know what I mean?
So theyd spent some money but not millions.
I was born at night but not last night!
And I was like Jeffrey, I know you havent spent that much money.
I love the theme of You are beautiful to me.
Because, listen, Ive never traded on my looks.
Im a comedy actor, Im not like Rob Lowe.
When you see Rob Lowe, you just start to laugh.
And Ill say, Rob, holy fuck, and Rob goes, I know.
So if hes Scottish, I get that.
It fits with Farquaad, whos English, it fits with the Euro-thing.
And the other thing is ogres have tempers, and so do Scottish people.
That flash anger I knew could be inherently comedic.
It is what an ogre would be.
And so I said, Let me just try it one more time.
He said, Its gonna cost millions.
I said, Im not getting paid more to do this.
Its framed in my house.
He said, You were absolutely right, you were 100 percent more connected to it.
And Jeffrey came to like it, which is fine.
Now here we are.
I saw another movie with dragons and the guys Scottish!
Thats all Im saying.How to Tame Your Dragon, is thats what its called?
Have you started work onShrek 5?
Have you talked to Eddie and Cameron about it?I have.
But I dont get to see them until later.
I love Donkey so much.
I want Donkey to live in my house.
I love Donkey so much that seeing and hearing him gets me excited.
Then I see Eddie at the press junkets and stuff, and its fun.
Hes a cool dude.
Cooler than Ill ever be.
In the last couple decades, youve done some dramatic films.Inglourious Basterds.
I love his work.
He wanted it to be a genre study.
So he … God, whats the name of the actor who played Alfred in the original TVBatman?
I should know his name.
[An audience member says, Alan Napier.
Tarantino sent me some stuff, so I studied Alan Napier.
Then I met with the makeup people.
I had all these ideas and suggested a makeup test, and they said makeup was already done.
I serve at the pleasure of the president!
We were doing a scene at Nazi headquarters, which was weird.
But anyway, with that character, I was doing a genre.
[Noise from offstage of something falling.]
Youre so shocked by that!
You cant play a genre!
A recurring theme during our conversation has been you standing up for your vision.
Ive received some of the greatest notes from studios.
Ive learned so much from Lorne Michaels.
If I hadnt doneWaynes World, I would never have been able to know how to doAustin Powers.
Theres very little friction; its mostly just conviction.
Its a lot to ask an audience to sit in the dark and not talk about themselves.
You have to give them the best that you know you could do.
I never thought Id get this shot, and I didnt want to blow it.
And so I just had an instinct about Bohemian Rhapsody inWaynes Worldand an instinct about Shrek being Scottish.
I found it really refreshing.
There are few comedy shows and movies these days that are so character-based.
Henri Bergson, in his essay Laughter, talked about how comedy is when man acts as machine.
And his belief is that laughter is a nervous response to the realization of your own mortality.
Were laughing at death.
Every culture has it.
Usually it deals with inflexibility, either of the subject or of the person viewing the subject.
The object or the subject.
Inflexibility is the staple of comedy.
Jay has a great expression, which is you see a guy walking down the street eating a banana.
He finishes eating, he throws the peel behind him.
Theres another guy walking behind him.
He doesnt see the banana peel.
Cut to the angle of the relationship.
You are unadaptable to the possibility that it could get worse.
Another one of Jays theories is to exceed the expectation, by a lot.
InAustin Powers, one of my favorite jokes is the slow-motion steamroller chase.
It can only exist with the key shot, which is the wide shot.
This is the thing.
Speaking of characters, do you think youd make anAustin Powers 4?Yes.
More immediately, theSNL50th anniversary is in February.
Are you planning on doing something?Has anybody here worked atSNL?
Do we think that they haveanythingplanned yet?
I would even question that its that date or that its gonna be on television!
Theyll probably do a semaphore version!
No, theyre very last minute.
Its an underrehearsed Broadway opening once a week.
At this point, youve done so much, youve had so many successes.
What excites you?Well, that excited me.
I lovedThe Gong Showwhen it originally aired in the late 70s.
To me that was punk rock.
I never missed it.
It was the internet before the internet, you know what I mean?
One contestants name was Melt It, and he would melt a block of ice 50 different ways.
That was his act.
Youd go, Oh, this is gonna be sucky, but then the audience was like 39!
He got some road salt, would lick it, take a blowtorch to it!
There was such a wide range.
It was all amateur hour.
I never lost my love for that.
Ive successfully instilled it in my children: If they say something mean and its funny, its fine.
So when I was asked, Do you want to doThe Gong Show?
I said, Yes, I do!
And theres a British comedian character I want to do it as.
I fuckingloveddoing that show.
That was like summer camp for me.
Its hard to process ones success while youre doing it.
A movie comes out, and youre working on the next one.
Whats so weird is that it didnt go away, you know?
I still see memes and stuff.
We made stuff that we wanted to see.
Thats all I ever do.
I wanted to seeThe Gong Show.
I love secret societies, Im obsessed with them, and Netflix went, Yeah, do it!
and I was able to do it.
I got the last letter that George Harrison ever wrote.
It was a fan letter to me.
Growing up in a house from Liverpool, the Beatles were the best of my gene pool.
Theyrefamousfamous, and their music is breathed by the gods for us.
Anyways, great laughs.
Keep it up, George Harrison.
And I have to say lifes been hard since then because that was the greatest.
But about five years ago, I went to Buckingham Palace.
A friend of mine got us to go into the gate, though not into the house.
Guys with flags, they stop, and then all of a sudden, they play theAustin Powerstheme!
They played itfor me!
They knew I was coming!
And I cried like a motherfucker!
I couldnt believe it.
