Mike Myers, Antonio Banderas, Shrek 3 Interview,

 Posted by: Sheila Roberts

MoviesOnline recently sat down with Mike Myers and Antonio Banderas at the Los Angeles press day to talk about their new film, Shrek the Third. Myers once again lends his voice to the memorable title character of Shrek while Banderas is once again a-purring in the role of Puss In Boots. The film also features the voices of Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Rupert Everett, Eric Idle, Justin Timberlake, John Krasinski, Ian McShane, Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Amy Sedaris.

One of the most multifaceted performers of his generation, Myers has brought an astonishing array of characters to life on both film and television. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, he began his professional career with Toronto's famed Second City comedy troupe then joined Chicago's Second City, where "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels discovered him, which led to his debut as a featured performer and writer on SNL in 1989.

For his groundbreaking work on SNL, Myers was nominated for an Emmy for Best Performance in a Comedy or Variety Show and won an Emmy for Best Writing for a Comedy or Variety Show. Among the characters Myers made popular on SNL were German talk show host Dieter; Linda Richman in "Coffee Talk";the hyperactive-hypoglycemic Phillip; Lothar of the Hill People; Simon the boy in the bathtub; and send-ups of The Rolling Stones’ Ron Wood and Mick Jagger.

Myers successfully brought another popular "SNL” character, Wayne Campbell, to the big screen in "Wayne's World,” which he also wrote. In 1993, he reprised the role in the hit sequel "Wayne's World 2," which he also penned. Between the "Wayne's World” films, Myers starred as an eccentric Scottish father and his first-generation Scottish-American son in the romantic comedy "So I Married an Axe Murderer.” In 1998, he appeared in Miramax's ensemble drama "54," earning critical acclaim for his portrayal of nightclub owner Steve Rubell. In 1997, Myers created, wrote, produced and starred in the smash hit "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery." The success of the first Austin Powers created an enormous following for the character and was followed by "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and "Austin Powers in Goldmember.” Myers will begin filming his new movie, "The Love Guru” at Paramount this summer.

Since his introduction to American cinema in the highly acclaimed "Mambo Kings,” Banderas has become one of the leading international actors of his generation. He has received critical praise for his performances in film, television and theater, as well as behind-the-scenes as a feature film director. His second directorial feature is the Spanish film "El Camino de los Ingleses” (titled "Summer Rain” in the U.S.). A coming-of-age story, the film follows the first loves, lusts and obsessions of friends on vacation at the end of the 1970s. The film is being released by Sogepaq in Spain. He made his directorial debut with "Crazy in Alabama” starring his wife Melanie Griffith.

In 2003, Banderas earned a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical for his Broadway debut in the Roundabout Theater Company production of "NINE,” a musical inspired by Fellini’s "8 ½.” He also received a Best Actor Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League Award and Theatre World Award. "NINE,” directed by David Leveaux, also starred Chita Rivera.

Recent films include "Take the Lead,” in which he portrayed ballroom dancer Pierre Dulaine, and the long-awaited sequel "The Legend of Zorro” opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones. Banderas has worked in films by some of Hollywood’s best directors starring some of its finest actors. They include Robert Rodriguez’s "Desperado” opposite Salma Hayek and Rodriguez’s "Once Upon a Time in Mexico” opposite Johnny Depp, Michael Cristofer’s "Original Sin” opposite Angelina Jolie, Alan Parker’s "Evita” opposite Madonna (for which he received his first Best Actor Golden Globe nomination), Martin Campbell’s "The Mask of Zorro” opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones (for which he received his second Best Actor Golden Globe nomination), Neil Jordan’s "Interview with the Vampire” with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, Jonathan Demme’s "Philadelphia” opposite Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, Bille August’s "House of the Spirits” with Meryl Streep and Glenn Close and Brian De Palma’s "Femme Fatale.”

Besides reprising his show-stealing role as Puss In Boots in "Shrek the Third,” this year Banderas will also be seen starring with Jennifer Lopez in Gregory Nava’s "Bordertown” and the romantic comedy "Homeland Security” opposite Meg Ryan.

Mike Myers and Antonio Banderas are two very talented and funny guys and we really appreciated their time. Here’s what they had to tell us about their latest film, Shrek the Third:

Q: Today is Cinco de Mayo.

Michael Myers: It’s called the fifth of May in Canada. (Laughs.)

Antonio Banderas Is it the fifth of May?

Q: Yes.

Antonio Banderas Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!

Q: Did you feel comfortable coming back to this all over again? And how soon did you know after the second one you’d be coming back for number three?

Antonio Banderas In my particular case, it was easy. The only pressure was, did I do something special that I was not totally in control [of] in the second one that made the character so successful and [that] I may just have forgotten? [Laughs] But, no, immediately I got in front of the microphone and it was almost like a continuation actually of the other one. As everything was so unspecific at the beginning – we’ll talk about that -- we had a script that we actually know is going to be changing all the time in the process of making the whole entire movie. So, you don’t put a lot of attention into that. You know that the characters are going to grow in different directions as much as you are involved in the whole entire method of making the movie.

Michael Myers: I’m so happy. I love the world so much. It’s such a fun world and I get to see my old friends. And it’s an odd experience though, because you are in this booth. So, it’s kind of like being a combination, like being a goal judge in hockey and in the witness protection program. You are in this thing and you don’t really get a lot of feedback. You see the people in the booth and occasionally they go, ‘Let’s try another one.’ So, I have developed imaginary friends. I have this imaginary eagle that sits with me and I talk to her. And if it’s a particularly good take, she goes ‘Caw!’ [Laughs.] And if it’s a great take it does three Caw’s. And I go, ‘What’s that? I was pretty good in that one.’

Q: Do you have input in terms of the overall direction of the movies?

Michael Myers: No, and nor would I want to. Every time I meet with the people, the team, Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is just a great artist in his own right and Chris Miller and Aaron Warner and Andrew Adamson. When you meet with them, their world is so complete and their ideas are so great, the dialogue begins because you are never shown a script. This is the entire script. They don’t even know what it is. You only record like a little bit at a time, so you start to ask questions, because as Antonio was saying, he’s like, ‘Well, how big is the cat?’ He didn’t even know when he first started. So, the dialogue begins with clarification. ‘Am I scared at this point? Do I know this person?’ All that stuff.
 
And what happens is I end up asking the 4-year-old questions. Like, it’s like, ‘Do we have the airplane tickets?’ ‘Oh! The airplane tickets.’ That’s sort of the way, and I know that I have asked a hard question because they get quiet. So, I go, ‘In the end, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ And they go, ‘Ah, we’ll get back to you. Let’s go on to the next line.’ And then they come back and they have answers and that’s kind of the thing. ‘Cause I’m not in the room when they are writing it. But, it’s been a great experience. These guys are just really committed to it being excellent and quality. I feel like I’m on a Stanley Cup winning team. These guys, Jeffrey is literally tireless. No aspect of it isn’t improved. I think this is the best of the three. I think the animation has gotten better, the story is better, all the characters are great. And it’s a great message, well told. And the music is great. Because I normally create the stuff I do for me and Antonio has directed twice and produced and stuff, I think we were talking before is that what we love is just being able to come in and play the characters.

Q: Antonio, what was it like being told that your voice was now coming out of the donkey?

AB I couldn’t believe I was going to be trapped in that sack of potatoes with hooves [Laughs] just 15 minutes into the movie. But it was up to them and there was no other way. No, I think it creates more comedy for the characters. You see a donkey fussing like a cat and all that. It actually just makes the rivalry stronger between the two characters, which is great, because at the end they actually love each other very much. But, there is something very interesting about those two characters that I love. It is kind of a message in there too and it is the solitude that both of them were living in until they found a family with Shrek and actually that is the essential motive for Donkey to be upset and jealous, because he just approached him coming from nothing. He was a solitary guy.
 
Nobody loves him. He was just alone there in the middle of nothing. And suddenly this cat comes with a totally different flair, but in reality he has a different history. You don’t know where he’s coming from. He’s completely alone too. So they are both of them competing for Shrek’s friendship. And when they get it, I think that is a beautiful message besides the message of diversity that the whole entire movie is giving and the counter-cultural side of it, which was really important for me even when I was not part of the family, when I was a spectator and I enjoyed the first movie. I was saying, ‘Oh, finally. This is something fresh. This is different.’ It’s actually taking characters that we all grew with as kids and looking at them from a totally different angle and just going along with them. I think that is actually the essential side of the movie. And this is very present in my character because of the fact that he establishes a very strong contrast to what he looks like. You know he’s a very little pussycat, but he doesn’t behave like that. He behaves totally [like a] conquistador. He’s got all of this…

Q: He’s got all those cat girlfriends…

Antonio Banderas He’s got a lot of girlfriends. He didn’t decide to just sit his head, as we say in Spain, -- this is a loose translation -- just to have a life with a family. No way! He has too many girlfriends now to attend to. (Laughs.)

Q: So, Puss-In-Boots was the breakout character in the second Shrek and now he’s getting his own feature. How is that shaping up?

Antonio Banderas It’s fantastic. Donkey doesn’t have one. (Laughs.)

Michael Myers: Wow. Wow.

Q: It runs pretty deep, doesn’t it?

Michael Myers: [Laughs] I’m gonna take this chair and move it.

Antonio Banderas That was a Puss-In-Boots movement! (Laughs.) No, I’m very happy about that. I didn’t expect at all at the beginning that it was going to develop like that. Really, I said it to Mike before that I felt that when I was called to do a recurring character, like many others in the film, you’re happy to appear and disappear and that’s it. But my character hooked very well with audiences and with the rest of the group. I’m totally happy to be part of this family, because in the end, besides all the economic stuff surrounding ‘Shrek,’ it’s a very, very profitable movie, but I think there is something in the family that you immediately see and it’s the fact that they are conscious of having a legacy in their hands that they are going to leave behind that changed the history of animation movies. And that is very important, because they never relax in that aspect. They are always looking for something new, new characters.
 
The credit side is working very heavy, but the technological side [is] too. You have to think that some of the programs that are used in the movie are developed in the same studio. So, it’s a whole entire team working together in a very strong way to leave something behind that makes sense for all of us. And that is very beautiful, because you feel it. You feel it in the air. Sometimes you are in a production and they are too sloppy and you feel that they are just trying to use the success of the first movie to do something a little bit lesser in terms of economics to make more money and then you can feel it in the air that it is not working the same way as the first one. In this case, it was quite the opposite. It’s almost like they are pushing even more as we are advancing in the movies. It may just happen that the movies don’t have the same qualities, that is absolutely normal, but the guarantee is that there is not a relaxation in the team, that they are pushing to go further than they went before.

Q: There should be a ‘Shrek 4,’ when it comes around to recording for that movie, would either of you be interested in recording together such as the cast of ‘Surf’s Up’ did in order to allow for more improvisation?

Michael Myers: No, I like this process, because I start to fall in love with Puss and I fall in love with Donkey and Fiona. And when I get there, it’s like a radio play. I mean I like them all. In fact, I may have fallen in love with Antonio. [Laughs] Who hasn’t? [Laughs] But there is something great, because in the process they don’t even know what the script is and they are constantly evolving it. I don’t think it actually…

Antonio Banderas It wouldn’t be possible. It wouldn’t be possible to be so creative, because if you made an appointment with all the actors in one session for a week, the movie would be locked. There would be no possibility to grow into the movie, developing creatively. In that year and a half, many things happened. Characters go in one direction so that you want to develop that story a little bit more and if we do that, it would be impossible to put these ten people together, eight, nine times in a year and a half, because we have many different projects. So it’s not only just the fact that we are not working together, I think it is thought in that way, because it allows them to rethink the movie in the same process of creating it.

Q: Mike, Shrek has a lot more to ponder in this movie. When you saw the script did you think, ‘Oh, great, more stuff to chew on’ for Shrek?

Michael Myers: Oh, yeah. I feel extremely well served in terms of stuff to play. In the first movie, it’s getting over the self. He has to learn to love himself in order to be loved. He has to learn to love himself in order to be in a marriage. And in this one, he has to learn to love himself in order to step into fatherhood or be the king of a country. And that inner conflict if you will, you may feel free to slap me if I cross the line of pretension. [Laughs] For me, I approach this as a dramatic part with some comedy and I get to really believe. And that’s me happiest – having to believe. I like making stuff, so it’s just believing and making. That’s the fun part. So I was really happy. And that unity of 1, 2 and 3 is what I’m blown away most about.

Q: Are you currently writing anything right now and who do you think is going to win the cup?

Michael Myers: I am. Oh, gosh, that hurts. The problem is that hurts. The hockey one. Well, I’ll make a prediction the Leaf’s are not winning the Stanley Cup this year. Ah, the pain every year. Why do I put myself through it? I get so emotionally involved. Buffalo, I didn’t watch this last week, I just got too busy. Buffalo is still doing good, right?

Q: They’re tied.

Michael Myers: They’re tied? They’ll win. I predict Buffalo. Now, on the other thing. On the average I take three or four years between movies, because I create them, then I write them, then I produce them and then film them. In two months I’m starting a movie called ‘The Love Guru’ that I’ve spent the last two and a half years developing. I came up with this character and I would tour it in little theaters in New York. Just have little secret shows. The Marx Bros. used to tour their movies for a year before they filmed them. I did this same process with ‘Austin Powers.’ When I did ‘Wayne’s World’ I had ‘Saturday Night Live’ to tour it. When I left ‘Saturday Night Live,’ I toured ‘Austin Powers.’
 
And the last three years I’ve been developing ‘The Love Guru.’ And now, it’s at Paramount and I’m shooting in August. And then after that there’s a slot and I’ll probably do the Keith Moon movie. That’ll also be in development during that time. You see, when you write stuff…I didn’t write Keith Moon, that’s Donald Margulies, who is a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright. He wrote an amazing, brilliant script. But he’s invited me into the process, like, ‘What do you think? What do you think?’ And I’m like, ‘Great.’ The average movie takes 60 months from the first kind of ‘Hmm, could this be a movie?’ to it being on the screen. I tend to take about 36 months, but I am there all 36 months.

Q: Can you tell us about the character?

Michael Myers: Yes, he is a Canadian who is raised in India, becomes a guru and helps the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup. (Laughs.)

Q: Do you have a favorite of the ‘Shrek’s’?

Michael Myers: This one. It has incorporated two and three and the wonderful Antonio Banderas.

Q: Antonio, are you doing ‘Sin City 2’?

Antonio Banderas In every roundtable they ask me that, but I didn’t receive a call from Robert. Knowing Robert, if I’m going to be in ‘Sin City 2,’ he will call me the night before.

Q: So what about the Stanley Cup?

Michael Myers: I’m so excited, I can’t even tell you.

Q: If you get the Cup while you’re filming, where will you take it?

Michael Myers: Where would I take it? They are so proprietous of the Cup; they probably won’t let me near it. But I’d take it to Lake Ontario and swim with it. [Laughs]

Share

Related Movie News

Hatchet 2 The Last Exorcism FASTER Red Hill Red Hill Red Hill Hardware The Killer Inside Me A Serbian Film The Last Exorcism