Mike on David Letterman- August 1, 2002
Letterman: My first guest is a very funny man, and not a minute too soon.
He's starring in the new film
Austin Powers in Goldmember, already a blockbuster, it's the #1 film in the country. Ladies and Gentlemen,
here he is, Mike Myers!
(audience cheers, mike walks out and starts to go towards the camera, then turns to go shake
David Letterman's hand. He bows and blows kisses to the audience, and sits down.)
Letterman: Well yes sir, I guess so! Now did I get this right? This is the biggest opening weekend of a motion picture comedy
ever?
Mike: Yes you did.
Letterman: Wow! Nice going!
(audience cheers)
Mike: Yah! Thank you sir. Thank you.
Letterman: Let's go back to the very first movie when you started out. I don't think anybody, you maybe had an idea
but did people really feel that these 3 films were going to do this kind of business?
Mike: I didn't know it was going to be released.
Letterman: (scoffs and laughs)
Mike: It's true I swear! We wrote it, I thought you had to grow up in my house to get it. Umm.. I just wrote
it therapeutically, and then Michael Deluca at New Line said I think we should make it, and then they made it.
(pause) And here we are Dave!! (starts over laughing really hard)
(audience laughs and claps)
Mike: I've had some chocolate! I had a whole chocolate bar before I came out! (he laughs)
(audience laughs)
Letterman: And how does that make you feel? That must just be an unbelievable experience right? That kind of huge success?
Mike: It's very surreal. I kind of have to pretend like it is actually my life, and really happening, and I'm extremely grateful and it's uh.. great!
Letterman: Well good for you, you deserve the success.
(audience applauds)
Mike: -thank you, thank you so much.
Letterman: Now I know you're probably busy with the movie opening, but are you doing other stuff this summer?
Mike: Uhh...No just this.
(audience laughs)
Letterman: Really?! Taking it easy?
Mike: I'm taking it easy. Uh.. you know we went on tour, we went to
England with the film
which was very strange because all the foreign press is very odd, you know like the
French questions are
always things like...
(changes to French accent)
"Mike in Austin Powers you loved women, in 54 you loved men....what next?"
(Dave and audience laughs)
(mike back to normal voice)
-'don't have an answer for yah...uhh...it's a comedy...' and nothing! and then it's just like, we were at a very fancy hotel
in London you know and I don't have a good suit- this is the first kind of good suit I've ever kinda owned-
Letterman:-You look very nice.
Mike: Thank you!
(audience laughs and applauds)
Letterman: Very fetching.
Mike: Thank you.
(mike swings his leg and cross them and poses. The band starts to play something on the bass guitar while he poses)
Mike: That's what I do with this suit (he poses again)
(Dave and audience laughs)
Mike: who moi?
(Dave laughs)
Mike:-Umm, and I'm there in this hotel um do you know what a 'city gent' is in England? It's those guys
who wear the bowler hats and they're-
Letterman: -I've seen them, they're a caricature of an English gentlemen?
Mike: Yes! And they're all in this place and uh it was a very very complicated schedule so they had my like datebook,
what we call a calendar, and they brought it out for me, the movie company. And I saw the guy sitting there reading the 'Times', the way it's
suppose to be folded, with his bowler hat, and he sorta looked over and recognized me..I don't know why he did, but he did and he sorta
gave the bemused look like:
(changes to English accent)
"Why does he have a schedule?"
(Dave, and audience laughs)
Mike: And you know they say that Americans speak all the time and say nothing, and
English people rarely speak and say
everything, in terms of what they're telling you how they feel, and so he did something, that as an
English person I
know what he saying, but he said it this way, I broke the code, he went:
(switches to English accent)
"Busy, are we?"
(Dave and audience laughs)
Mike: Which, which means "Who the hell are you to have a schedule, you're nothing but a cheap clown."
(everyone laughs)
Mike: So I'm sitting there-
(audience claps)
Mike: In my head, in my head he must be thinking that it's like:
(switches to English accent)
Tuesday: must buy rubber chickens,
Wednesday: oversized shoes
(everyone laughs)
Mike: So you know, it's tough. I have too many cultures in my head now. I'm Canadian, my parents are
English and I live
in the United States. It's tough.
Letterman: Have you had time off at all from this?
Mike: I've had some time off...I love to play-do you know charades?..-
Letterman: -Oh I know charades
Mike: -Or Charades? (he pronounces it different)
(audience laughs)
Mike: -Tomatoes, or as you say Tomatoes.. (pronounces different)
(audience laughs)
Mike: We were playing charades, and uh part of the thing-
Letterman: -Where were you playing charades?
Mike: In, In- (mike stares at him)
Letterman: -Are you in a league?
(audience laughs)
Mike: I'm playing them right now!
(audience laughs harder, and applauds)
Mike: Yes. (he smiles and turns to the audience while they clap)
Letterman: You must be very good then.
Mike: Yes, my teams called the Mime Maple Leafs.
(everyone laughs)
Mike: And we've made a few trades..umm.. this is in Los Angeles with American actors, and
uh I have too many cultures in my head, I don't know what's going on, and so you have to have a film title
and you have to act it out right, and so I got Police Academy right, so I got it and went great, and so you have a time limit
and I put it down, and I went like this for police-
(he gets up)
I went like this-
(he does his imitation of a hopping jig and swinging his hand)
(audience laughs)
And you know one of these things-
(pretends to tip his hat)
(changes to English accent)
"Hello Hello, It's a pea souper" , one of those
(laughing)
(he sits down)
And they're like 'Charlie Chaplin!' uh.. 'Guy with a broken wrist!' And then it was like
'eee' (imitates buzzer sound) and I went Police Academy Idiots! And they're like sorry we're not
limeys, we're not in Dick Van Dyke, and Mary Poppins, sorry.
(laughing)
Letterman: But do you still hang around with your old buddies and sometimes you go on trips and vacations..-
Mike: Yes! Yes! We went to Hawaii. Yes, once a year I try to meet up with my best friend
who's from Toronto-
Letterman: -What's his name?
Mike: David Mackenzie. And for 28 years we've always tried to meet up-
Letterman: -I think that's nice.
Mike: It's awesome-
Letterman: -He's your oldest friend..
Mike: My oldest, oldest. He's a brother from another mother.
(audience laughs and applauds)
Mike: And we went to Hawaii-
Letterman: Hang on a second, I wanna hear all about the trip with you and your buddy in Hawaii..
Mike: ok ok
Letterman: We'll be right back with Mike Myers.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Letterman: When we were last here, Mike was telling us about his buddy and he went to
Hawaii for a vacation.
Mike: Yeah we've been friends for 28 years, and once a year we try and meet somewhere in the planet, this year it was the world cup, and we're both
English and we're England fans, and we thought we'd go to Japan for 4 days, except it's too complicated and uh, cuz
it's just too hard.
Letterman: What? the travel to get there is too hard?
Mike: I'm not a very smart person-
(audience laughs)
..Evidently they speak a different language, and I don't know really. (more laughing)
umm so we decided to go to Hawaii, because the game would be on at 8:30, which meant that we could have dinner, and then
power back some beers and watch the game.
(looks at camera and changes to English accent)
'Cause we're English!
(audience laughs)
And I had such a great time, and I got so relaxed, and I always know when it clicks for me, which is like day 2
because I always say the word 'time' funny. So he says 'Are you having a good time?' and I say 'I'm having a good
ztime.' I put a little Zed on that T-
(audience laughs)
And he's like 'ooh k you've clicked it'. So we're walking along, and it's sunset and we go for our walk before
we start to pound back for England, and we were walking along and a lovely young family comes up and 'oh you're mike
Myers', yes I'm so relaxed..
(his voice drops to a more slurred relaxed voice)
'How's it going? Everything good.
(everyone laughs)
My voice dropped 10 octaves. uh.. 'Where do you live?' and I'm so tired I went:
(slurs voice again)
Hollywood.
(audience laughs)
My best friend, I've known for 28 years said, "Hollywood!?", It's like
what do u live in the "Dream Factory?"
(laughter)
What are you in "Tinsel Town?"
Clark Gabel's my land lord!
(more laughing)
It was awful! The whole trip! And I said please can it not be the whole trip, and he said
"It's the whole trip buddy!"
(audience laughs)
So we go, and it was like lunchtime and I said (slurs voice again) 'Okay
here's the deal, you go book the lunch, I'll get the boogie boards', and he goes
"Ok, that's a good idea HOLLYWOOD!"
(laughing)
The whole time. It was awful.
Letterman: Mentioning Hollywood, you just recently had your star placed on the walk of fame.
Mike: Yes I did, Yes.
(audience applauds)
Mike: Thank you, thank you very much, thank you.
Letterman: Did you get a good location?
Mike: Uh yes uh, my location is right in front of a sex shop that sells bongs.
(audience laughs)
Soo..you know...
(laughter, and clapping)
(camera pans to Paul Shaffer clapping, and Mike nods to him and claps along with him)
Letterman: You must be very proud (he laughs)
Mike: Yes, Yes..Yah..thank you. And of course my mom comes down to see it right-
Letterman: -How is your mom doing?
Mike: Oh my moms awesome, you know my moms name is Bunny, she's getting on, we call her the Energizer bunny.
(audience laughs)
Letterman: And she gets things, but kind of in a different version, she gets a different version of everything, right?
Mike: My moms eccentric..uh..she has no internal monologue. Um ya..you know when we were driving there we were stuck in a car jam, and it was hot, like a million
degrees, and my mom said (imitates mom in English accent) 'You know, I'm a soup nut.'
(audience laughs)
I said what do you mean? She goes (imitates again) 'I love soup, don't give me a steak, I'll take a soup
every time. I'm like 'What the hell, I'm going to get a star in the walk of fame!!' It makes no sense!' It's crazy!
It's just weird things like that, we were at the restaurant afterwards, and she went
(imitates)
'Michael, I seem to be short of lap', I go 'What the hell is short of lap?' (imitates) 'I'm short of lap! She gets mad
like I'M the idiot! 'Short of lap!' And I look down, and her napkin had fallen, and I said 'Oh your napkin fell'
(imitates) 'Yes, I don't have enough lap, and it fell' and I said 'What are you an
English wind talker!?'
(audience laughs)
It's like you're telling me these things, so the Germans won't find out or something!
(laughing)
We don't want to give unnecessary information to the enemy!
Letterman: God bless mom. Let's uh see if we can't make several more million dollars for the movie. Let's show people a clip, it's called Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Do you know the clip we're going to see Mike?
Mike: I think it is Austin sneaking into Dr.Evil's sub lair, and he has to pretend to be on of the henchmen. You know, that old chestnut.
(audience laughs)
Letterman: Ok here we go, Mike Myers, Austin Powers in Goldmember.
(shows clip)
(Mike imitates Austin's facial expression)
Letterman: Now will there be more of these? Now this is the 3rd one, will there be more?
Mike: You know this is the most fun I've ever had. It was a magical experience. I felt we were protected
all the way through. It was the easiest ride, the easiest shoot, I kept writing more scenes so we could prolong the
shooting period, it was like a 3 month party. If someone told me I had to once a year, I would be the happiest person in the world, but I
never plan these things so I do not know.
Letterman: Well good luck to ya and congratulations on the success on this one. Very impressive. Nice to have you here again Mike.
(audience cheers, and applauds)
Mike: Thank you!
Letterman: Mike Myers everybody!
(applause)