What happened to Mike Myers? We review the career of the indispensable Austin Powers

Commendable actors and actresses have emerged from the quarry of Saturday Night Live (SNL) comedians, from ben stiller until Julia Louis-Dreyfus, which have managed to expand their interpretative frontiers. Perhaps that is the key to success in Hollywood: knowing how to adapt and not be reduced to an archetype with an expiration date. This is probably one of the reasons why the comedian Mike Myers ended up disappearing from our movie buff radar. After an invaluable contribution to the comedy of the absurd with his iconic Austin Powers character, the Canadian gradually deflated until he fell out of favor (at least when it comes to cinema). What other reasons explain his failure? What has he been doing these years out of the spotlight?

The beginnings of Myers’ career were promising. He dedicated himself to perfecting his comedic side at Toronto’s Second City Comedy group, through which he was discovered by Martin Short and invited to participate in SNL, his springboard to stardom. In the famous North American program he was able to develop as a screenwriter – he won an Emmy in 1989 for his television texts – and it was not long before he made the leap from the small to the big screen. In fact, his first job as a “serious” actor was in a short film directed by Ben Stiller, ‘Elvis Stories’.

However, it was his first feature film that put him on the Hollywood map. ‘Wayne’s World. What a scatter!’ (penelope spheeris1992) brought back one of his most iconic characters from the NBC show and made him a co-star, along with dana carveyfrom a story of two fans heavy metal in the delirious odyssey of preparing a late-night television show and, at the same time, conquering the girls of his dreams. The film was a real success on American soil. It led the box office against all odds and made Myers one of the most popular actors of the moment. In it he exhibited his most recognizable brand: absurd humor.

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It is precisely that sense of humor that reached its zenith in ‘Austin Powers: Mysterious International Agent’ (Jay Roach1997), a parody of the classic character from james-bond and the spy films, where Myers was not only satisfied with playing the protagonist: he was also in charge of giving life to the legendary villain, Dr. Evil. The absurdity of the situations, the gags and the story resulted in a delirious adventure story that almost literally swept the United States, although criticism never accompanied his spirit. His aesthetic of excess, sixties to the core, did not go unnoticed, and the two sequels that followed -‘Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me’ (1999) and ‘Austin Powers as a Gold Member’ (2002)- confirm the good reception it had among the public. He was undoubtedly a winning horse, which increased astronomically with the success of ‘Shrek’ (Andrew Adamson Y Vicki Jenson2001), in which Myers voiced the cranky green ogre.

But of course, everything that goes up must come down at some point. After the initial impact of the character, exploited in three films that managed to attract actors like Beyonce either Michael Cain, the Powers bubble ended up bursting. The saga stopped, and the plummeting of its creator began. Productions like ‘El gato’ (Bo Welch2003) and, above all, ‘The good vibes guru’ (Marco Schnabel, 2008) dynamited the affection that the public had professed for him for years. Both films, separated by a period of five years that already shows signs of little professional activity of the actor, were a huge box office and critical failure. And we already know that there is nothing worse than a series of failures so that your name ends up sunk in the depths of the trunk of memories hollywoodians. And that the most notable thing he has done in the last decade is a small role in ‘Inglourious Basterds’ (Quentin Tarantino2009) is not at all encouraging.

The truth is that Mike Myers did not completely disconnect from the industry, but rather began to consider other possibilities. ‘Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon’ (2013) was his first film as director, but also his last to date. This documentary, which tells the life of the musical manager Shep Gordon, received good reviews and even participated in the Toronto Film Festival, although it seems that it was not enough to encourage Myers to continue directing. In addition, as an actor, he acknowledged in an interview for GQ in 2014 that he does not receive too many offers: he stated that he has only received 15 scripts since 1991, and he is not one of those people who accepts anything. His rejection of many proposals, his progressive withdrawal from the industry and the loss of public favor have left him, at 58 years old, in the background.

Despite everything, we will not stop seeing the Canadian on our screens. In 2018 he played Ray Foster in the successful ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and, thanks to Netflix, we have just enjoyed the actor playing eight different characters in ‘El Pentavirato’, a series for very coffee lovers that introduces us to a secret society made up of five men that have been since the time of the Black Death (1347 for more figures and accuracy) to influence from the shadows the future of world events.