Why did Mike Myers' career go straight down the shitter?

He’s a terrible person. Thread closed.

Here ya go OP.

He's a total asshole. He's also yesterday's news.

OP, that's a butch woman, baby!

He’s 200 years old. Can’t people just retire?

He wouldn't stop slaughtering people.

He's a raging asshole. Everyone knew that.

Raging asshole stories? Please enlight me!

I don’t give a fuck that he’s an asshole. He’s NOT funny. He makes me cringe, he’s so fucking shitty.

“I honestly root against him,” an executive said, according to Entertainment Weekly. The director of Wayne’s World also joked, “Maybe he could open, like, a children’s hospital to clean up his rep.”

He aged out. That low brow, dumb straight guy humor slot was taken over by Seth Rogen and the other types who appeared in Judd Apatow films.

Hasn’t had a hit since 2002. He should’ve made another Austin Powers while people still cared. Instead he made The Love Guru, which sank like a stone. That coupled with his diva attitude doesn’t translate to a comeback.

It’s a shame though. Douchebags quoting it was the downfall of its legacy (like Borat), but those Austin Powers movies had some genuinely funny moments.

Cat in the Hat, Love Guru & Studio 54.

The end

ALL comedic actors fade out after a while. 1) because they just can't write enough good comedies to keep these guys working, 2) all comic actors want to do "serious roles" at some point, and they self-destruct

Yikes, he turned into me.

A new Austin Powers movie would do well.

Didn't his career start to fail after he dumped his long suffering wife Linda Richman for a younger model?

Everyone puts Pete Davidson down but he's well liked by the industry and is considered professional. Myers is none of that. Although he's obviously more talented than Davidson, the fact that no one wants to work with him tells you why his career went down the shitter.

[quote]Didn't his career start to fail after he dumped his long suffering wife Linda Richman

During which the DL claimed him as gay.

until:

[quote]he dumped his long suffering wife Linda Richman for a younger model?

If you make enemies and burn bridges, nobody will want to help you when you inevitably come out with a clunker or three. That's what happened to Mike Myers.

BTW, didn't he host TV's Gong Show a few years back under a character. He was actually quite funny.

Karma.

[quote[BTW, didn't he host TV's Gong Show a few years back under a character.

I forgot that. He did. I thought he was easing back into working. He had that, a small role in "Bohemian Rhapsody" but now he's disappeared again.

Myer's did indeed have a boyfriend between wives. It was rumoured that he was going to come out and he brought the man to a few public events.

Then an article was published about a "famous comic actor about to come out" and the next thing you know: wife number two.

One of the most amazing articles I've ever read (in Entertainment Weekly no less) was about how gleeful so many people in Hollywood were when the Love Guru bombed. Very few of them went on record and the ones who did gave scathing "left-handed" compliments at best. They even interviewed Meyers himself.

He was not his own best advocate.

Much of the article was about how horrible/difficult he was to work with once he became successful and specific ways he screwed people over.

I want stories. He seems nice to me.

Yikes. He looks more like the head of the Women's Studies Department at a small university these days

He gets points for being great in "54" but his so-called "comedy" made me cringe. He seemed on the spectrum in interviews.

He played the record producer in “Bohemian Rhapsody” who said that the song wasn’t something that would make kids rock out in their cars. A bit of stunt casting?

Did any other celebrities publicly dislike him?

Cat and the Hat was unwatchable. He made some weird creative decisions on that (like an annoying Linda Richmond type NYC accent) and then would sleep late and show up whenever he wanted. problem was that makeup took like 5 or 6 hours and it ballooned the budget because everyone would end up working triple overtime. there are plenty of stars whose workday starts when they feel like getting out of bed but when 5-6 hrs of makeup is involved, it is a totally different level of dysfunction and budget disruption. they all pay for it in their salaries one way or another.

I always had a thing about the Swinging London era and always had a movie in my head - but more like how it really was, not an exaggerated cartoon version.

In fact I thought that aspect of the Austin Powers was quite fun, but so much of the first film was so infantile and boring.

But, BOY did it catch on!

I think he's still living off the proceeds.

Stole characters from Dana Carvey left and right. Example: Dr. Evil is Dana’s impression of Loren Michaels.

He made a zillion dollars voicing the Shrek movies. He's fine.

Isn't he supposedly a huge Peter Sellers fan? I guess history could repeat itself. He revives Austin Powers for a few profitable movies, makes a well-regarded change of pace role, then dies.

"always had a movie in my head"

Nice, but please use the word "mind," as in "always had a movie in my mind." "In my head" sounds way too close to the pretentious Miss Streisand who wanted to appear serious and appeal to her ignorant masses at the same time circa 1983 and 1991. Thank you.

[quote]Nice, but please use the word "mind,"

My mind is in my head.

[quote]"In my head" sounds way too close to the pretentious Miss Streisand

I don't care.

Wouldn't JO Weinstein.

I liked The Love Guru.

Combination of a string of flops, a "diva" reputation, and what r11 said about aging out of these roles

Is there any way possible to send the "...down the shitter" Troll straight down the shitter?

I read his book "Canada" a few years ago and while it was well-written and mostly interesting, there was something superficial and troubling about it, at times hinting at him having the famous Canadian morbid streak he himself talks about in it. His father fought a terrible prolonged battle with Alzheimer's that seemed to affect him to a traumatic degree. For a comedian, he came across as incredibly serious and overly earnest. I don't know if I liked him more after reading it, but I guess he came across as more of a deeply flawed human being than the snotty gone-Hollywood asshole I'd taken him for before.

I don't think his career is past salvaging, though. 57 is not that old these days, he can clean up his shit head reputation, there's been plenty of time passed since The Love Guru, and plenty of people still have nostalgia for the Austin Powers films.

By 2002 he was riffing on the same old act, he wasn't really bringing anything fresh. Shrek wasn't even his role originally so he was lucky to get that, he stayed hands off for the first two and just addlibbed a little but became more involved in the creative process by the third and I guess DreamWorks appreciated that so much that they cancelled the planned fifth movie.

Halloween 5

He should transition into Linda Richman.

"I heard that Madonna is a Mexican and doesn't want anyone to know about it" LOL

LOVE GURU and CAT IN THE HAT, of course.

He didn't want to keep repeating himself. But his new ideas and roles sucked. Nobody cared.

BTW INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, SUPERMENSCH and BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY were excellent and the man's a comic genuis. So you can just lay off him.

Sortof forgot he existed. Would live to hear the diva stories. Kindof deflating without specifics.

Entertainment Weekly, June 2008 He begins, as he often does, with his father. He talks about the deep depression that engulfed him after his dad’s death in 1991 and the spiritual quest he embarked upon to make sense of his pain. He talks about Eastern poetry, Deepak Chopra, and Seat of the Soul author Gary Zukav. He goes on, discussing Carl Sagan, Lenny Bruce, George Harrison, the Marx Brothers, the 1970s TV show Kung Fu, and the 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas. He references Joseph Campbell, The 400 Blows, cognitive behavioral psychology, Quentin Tarantino, progressive rock, and the mythology of vampires as it relates to the concept of ”mojo” in the Austin Powers movies. He speaks for more than 20 minutes, without interruption and without cracking the merest semblance of a joke — all in answer to this EW question: Where did you get the idea for your latest character? For the past five years, Mike Myers, the man who has brought forth such iconic comedic creations as couch-surfing slacker Wayne Campbell, swinging superspy Austin Powers and his nemesis Dr. Evil, and the lovable ogre Shrek, has been all but invisible. Since his last major role in the 2003 Dr. Seuss adaptation The Cat in the Hat — a film that critics lambasted as a hair ball — he has provided the voice of Shrek in two successful sequels. But while Will Ferrell has appeared in 10 comedies over those years and Adam Sandler in seven, Myers’ most notable onscreen appearance was in a 2005 Hurricane Katrina relief special, during which he stood stiffly beside Kanye West as the rapper went off script, declaring, ”George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Now, like the cryogenically defrosted Powers, Myers, at age 45, is coming out of a state of pop culture suspended animation — and he’s hoping he still has his mojo.

Sorry, that didn't work as well as I thought it would. Let's try again.

-- if it's not obvious, he was certainly long-winded -- ”Mike’s one of the smartest people, but he does characters, not real people,” says one high-ranking studio executive. ”If the audience relates to the character — a goofball in his basement, like Wayne, or a James Bond send-up, like Austin Powers — you’re off to the races. But there’s so little margin for error.” -- But in a family in which there was no higher value than a sense of humor—in which the boys would be roused from their beds late at night to watch a Peter Sellers movie on TV—Myers was imbued with the idea that he was lacking in that department. “My mom would say… ‘Everyone in the house step forward who’s funny. Not so fast, Michael,'” Myers told Charlie Rose in 1999.

I loved the Linda Richman character, I've known so many middle-aged and older Jewish women IRL who are exactly like that.

Myers apparently had the idea of Austin Powers when he was still on SNL but he kept it in his head and never did an Austin Powers skit because he knew it had the potential to be a hit movie, and if he had done the character on SNL Lorne Michaels would've had partial ownership. He waited until he was off the show before he did anything with it.

I never heard about him being an asshole or difficult. He stayed at a hotel where I used to work (during a time when he was a lot hotter as an actor). He seemed very nice & low-key.

I wish he'd done the Sprockets movie.

Off topic, but her skits with Mike Myers on SNL were some of Madonna's best work.

Forgot all about Sprockets ! Hysterical !

Didn't he get sued because he didn't want to do The Cat In The Hat??

R53 No - he was sued by Universal for breach of contract for pulling out of the Sprockets movie project “Dieter.” It’s been speculated that Cat In the Hat was part of the undisclosed settlement Meyers made with Universal/Imagine.

^^Myers, I mean.

Peter Sellers was also a difficult asshole with an identity crisis, so it’s no surprise he is Mike’s idol.

It’s hard to imagine him having a true comeback that isn’t another Shrek movie.

Mike hates Lorne Michaels for owning every character Mike, or any other SNL cast member, created for SNL. That's why the Hollywood insiders turned their back on Mike when his stardom started to fade, because -all of a sudden - they remembered how he dissed one of their own.

Sprockets was fine as a regular skit, but a whole movie would have been torture.

Exactly, R58.

Someone posted in another thread last year that he gave the Wayne character to Myers in the early 1980s with a promise that Myers would only do it on the Second City stage and no where else.

Also on another thread someone wrote that he visited Myers when he was working in London as part of a comedy team. Myers shared a one bedroom flat with his comedy partner. They didn't have separate beds.

I HATED Sprockets.

Myers always pinged to me (most of the SNL comics do for some reason). Does anyone have a more specific example of him being awful? He just seems like a quiet and extremely private Canadian to me.

R62 it seems that he has, or had, a bad habit of stealing other people's characters. He never seemed to steal jokes which all comics do, but stealing someone else's character and making it his own seems to be something he's been doing for decades.

"So, I married An Axe Murderer" was the only time he didn't play a character, leaving out him playing his father, and the movie was good in an inoffensive early 90s rom-com way.

It seems there's a Austin Powers 4 coming out, but they've been talking about that for years now.

[quote] Someone posted in another thread last year that he gave the Wayne character to Myers in the early 1980s with a promise that Myers would only do it on the Second City stage and no where else.

Thanks for that nugget, r60. Whoever invented "Wayne" nailed certain behavioral characteristics of late 70s, 80s, early 90s American, midwest (Illinois, Wisconsin) white, working-class and near-suburb males.

I know. I went to high school and post high school with them. That's why I found the character of "Wayne" so hilarious- it's accuracy. t The early characters (Wayne, Linda Richman) of Mike Myers, whether his or stolen, and Austin Powers are very entertaining and funny. To me.

He's one of those comedic people who a person either has an immediate affinity to, or not. For example, I can't believe how many people I know who find Adam Sandler to be hilarious, but for me, his appeal totally escapes me.

I was surprised to know Myers and his first wife divorced. I remember he credited her with so much of the success of his early career. I believe Linda Richman is based upon his former mother-in-law.

His first wife was very homely.

I used to play roller hockey with him in the 90s at Venice Beach. He was a super nice guy but that many terrible stories about him can't be untrue.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

He made $100 million dollars and got out. Hes free to do whatever he wants now.

As long as it's within the confines of the law.

I think I recall reading in Movieline a long, long time ago (or possibly Spy magazine) that he was often heard yelling into telephones things like “you’re talking to the next Woody Allen here!! (Before Allen was revealed to be so creepy and awful).

There were some genuinely amusing clips of him on SNL, but almost as many pretty awful ones, like when he performed in cockney baby talk a character called Simon, whose catch phrase was “cheeky monkey”. Maybe it was a simpler time, but characters like these seemed overplayed and hackneyed, and some of the worst comedy films were based on them. As a kid I thought the show was so funny, but grew up and out of it. Sandler’s Operaman was probably the tipping point.

R69 THIS. His schtick is aimed at child/teen/young adult demographics, so after his fans aged, he started losing them. Comedy styles do not age well, either. The Love Guru was an abomination that should have been released in the 50s.

When Peter Sellers lost his appeal to audiences, he wisely turned to drama, and was nominated for an academy award. His career was revitalized (for the last year of his life). Mike was good in Inglorious Basterds and Bohemian Rhapsody. He should stick to playing serious roles.

You used to play tonsil hockey with him at Venice Beach, r66? Did I hear that correctly?

Fun fact, he went to high school with Eric McCormack and David Furnish.

No more “it seems like.”

Name one incident where Mike Myers “screwed over” someone else and link to the receipts.

R71, no tonsil hockey from us. He never gave off even a vaguely gay vibe and he is pretty unprepossessing in person. You'd never think he was an actor. He also was lousy at skating backwards so no one wanted him on their team.

The director of Wayne's world. Said she would rather drink gasoline then work with him again. All he did was whine and complain.

Della @ R65 the poster stated in the other thread the character was based on his own Canadian brothers and Myers was better at making the character likebale.

Thanks, r76.

[quote]He was a super nice guy but that many terrible stories about him can't be untrue.

What are some of the terrible stories? Still waiting for some

I always preferred Dana Carvey

Well, those three Austin Powers movies are not a bad legacy. Think of all the catchphrases we got from them.

R80 especially the mole quote.

Is it because his sister Daenerys burnt Kings Landing?

I knew someone who worked for New Line and said Myers claimed to be hypoglycemic and said insisted on having someone follow him around with a tray of bacon at all times in case he felt faint.

R83 There's a great article in the October 2000 issue of Vanity Fair about what an asshole he is and has always been, but I can't find it online. It talks about how he complained about food constantly and one director made her daughter Myers' personal "food girl."

I swear I read an article about him coming out and then it just was never mentioned again.

I read an article about how he was devastated by the death of his father. And then I continued to read how he was still devastated for the next 25 years.

Beyonce ruined the last AP movie

He stole Dr Evil from Dana Carvey. What a dick.

I don't know much about his reputation, but most of the SNL people have short shelf lives.

Dana Carvey was likely one of the most talented people to ever be on the show and he doesn't work much.

Chevy Chase was in a film a year for most of the 1980s and then his career sank too.

Comedic actors tend not to have long careers. Jim Carrey was huge for awhile, and then he disappeared. Will Ferrell seems to be over, thankfully.

I guess he's kinda older but it's interesting that Myers is never part of those David Spade/Adam Sandler/Rob Schneider man child movies.

Jim Carrey was just nominated for an Emmy or Golden Globe for a Showtime comedy that he did. He didn't disappear so much as he consciously chose to stop working.

Meyers was just in Bohemian Rhapsody and got great reviews. Maybe he doesn't work because he doesn't need or want to.

Net Worth: $175 Million

The Linda Richman character played on SNL was indeed based on his mother-in-law, who was named Linda Richman. She was not his wife.

We need some good stories of him being an asshole.

R89, I always liked Dana Carvey, though he was quite talented. Shame he didn't have a bigger career. His impressions were on par with or even better than Phil Hartman (RIP).

Total insufferable asshole, legendary for it. Deserves to vanish, hopefully he goes broke, too.

Examples, please. I want to hate him as much as y'all do.

(R98) people have been telling you stories. If you would read the tread. Sorry, but we're not all out racing to meet old washed up Mike Myers.

R86 That Vanity Fair article I mention talks about how he would tell people the story of his father dying over and over again. One guy said something like, "I heard the story of his father dying like six times, but he didn't even know that my father is dead."

Some Mike is Jerk info

This is a bit off topic, but I miss Phil Hartman to this day. In the 1990s, during their post-SNL days, I believed that Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey working together would have made a great prime-time weekly comedy-variety show, "The Phil and Dana Show." They had such great chemistry in their pair-ups, like when they did Carson and McMahon, or Perot and Stockdale. They could have welcomed other ex-SNL castmates to do skits with them. Instead, Dana did his own short-lived show on ABC that launched other people's careers, and Phil did News Radio and got murdered.

I miss Phil Hartman too, what a shock his death was. And I normally don't get emotional over a celebrity death, but I was very sad when Jan Hooks died. She was, IMHO, one of the best comedic actresses ever.

I miss Phil Hartman's voice on The Simpsons. It makes me sick he died like that. Then poor Chris Farley.

r57 annoying reading of the subject. Executives hated Meyers because he was an asshole. Not because of some loyalty to Lorne Michaels, a guy who lives and works in NYC. I remember people talking about Meyers saying stuff like he wasn't just awful to be around, he'd finish with a diet coke can and just throw it on the ground. In a studio building. people fucking hated him. He was awful to everyone.

Doesn't make him untalented or mean that he should never work again, just that when it mattered, he could not handle himself politely with other human beings. especially those in his orbit where his status mattered. It is quite common for actors to be very nice to fans or random people when their status doesn't matter but total nightmares who can't hold their shit together when they get on to a movie set and they are allowed to be monsters.

You’d think he’d have had the warts on his face chopped the fuck off! THEY’RE DISGUSTING!! AS IS ANYONE WITH A WARTFACE!

He wishes he was as talented and funny as Steve Martin.

[quote] Dana Carvey was likely one of the most talented people to ever be on the show and he doesn't work much.

Dana Carveys’ life went on hold after SNL, when he would’ve been moving up to the next level. A very talented guy in my opinion, that good things should’ve happened for. IIRC, he had some serious health issues that stopped him in his tracks. I believe it was major heart attacks at a young age, that required surgery and a long recuperation.

His career was too long to go "straight" down the shitter. I've never seen the Austin Powers movies - I have no particular objection, I just missed them.

Dana Carvey was just too twinky, too fey for the leading roles in comedy. He was best as the supporting player. He might have had a better career as a sitcom actor but he was an unlikely major motion picture star.

He sounds like a pain in the ass but his cameos are really fantastic. He should come out as a dramatic actor like Peter Sellars did in Being There. I know it's cursed but I wonder what he'd do with a character like Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy Of Dunces. I bet he'd be great and he's used to wearing a fat body suit.

R111 True. Comedy ages like milk, that’s why it’s inevitable that stars like Peter Sellers, Adam Sandler, and Robin Williams all turned to drama when the public tired of their shtick.

Mike Myers was in a couple of expensive high-profile RAZZIE winning megaflops and after a while people stopped paying to see his movies.

Myers also has a smarmy presence that suits him well when he's playing smarmy characters but he also comes across as highly condescending. Those qualities will not make for a lasting career.

Gene Wilder’s career is another cautionary tale... he was hilarious playing it straight as the serious guy who was fed up with everyone. His dramatic pauses and slow burns are legendary. As the goofy nerd, however, he was cringeworthy. Too bad he ended his career playing heartsick puppy roles.

From OPs photo - is Mike Myers blind in one eye?