Mike Myers Interview, The Love Guru

Guru Pitka, a.k.a. “The Love Guru,” first popped up in Mike Myers’ imagination while he was still working on the blockbuster “Austin Powers” series. At the time, Myers had just lost his father and, in his grief, began a serious personal spiritual quest that led him to gurus and ashrams and then, unexpectedly, full circle back to comedy again. In the words of Deepak Chopra, he came to see that “humor is humanity’s way of escaping deep suffering.”

Celebrated for his uniquely irreverent and irresistible way of taking unconventional fish-out-of-water characters to hilarious extremes, Myers could not resist the idea of spoofing a world he found alternately intriguing and outrageous at times, silly in its trappings and yet, at other times, profoundly sincere, a world where enduring ancient questions about the nature of life regularly slipped on the banana peel of modern temptations. This was prime comedy territory as far as he was concerned.

“What struck me as I began meeting gurus like Gary Zukav and Deepak Chopra is how actually really funny they are,” he says. “I started to realize that the whole idea of enlightenment is really, at heart, to just lighten up.” Another reason he was attracted to the subject, Myers explains, is that “Steve Martin once said the most exciting thing to do is to find comedy where comedy hadn’t existed before. And I loved the idea of bringing irony and humor to the human search for happiness and love.”

Myers next took his impudent guru for a test drive. Donning a purposefully fake beard, mysterious accent and guru get-up, Myers hit a series of New York theaters, where he offered Guru Pitka’s deliciously unhinged “dharma lecture,” a whimsical montage of non-denominational advice ranging from the truly ridiculous to the surprisingly sublime.

The character was an instant hit among those early New York audiences lucky enough to witness Myers’ evolving creation. Some found Pitka a hilarious satire, others experienced him as a bit of an inspiration in his own right – and the mix seemed to do exactly what Myers had hoped:  go places in comedy he had yet to explore.

Mike Myers is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about “The Love Guru”:

MoviesOnline: How long did it take you to create this character? And what was it about Indian culture that appealed to you so much?

MIKE MYERS: Well, my father passed away in 1991 and two things emerged for me creatively. One was Austin Powers. Austin Powers was a tribute to my father for all the British comedy that he’d introduced to me during his lifetime and in my lifetime. The other thing that emerged was the Guru Pitka. In 1994 I did a stage show. I did five characters. I did Austin Powers for the first time and I did the Guru Pitka for the first time. The Guru Pitka was my kind of dealing with his death and the one guy I wanted to see my success the universe had taken away from me and it rocked my world. And I went on a mini, not terribly deep spiritual quest, but a spiritual quest in which I began to read veraciously and one of the things that I read was Deepak Chopra. I saw him on “Oprah” and I went “Wow, what an interesting philosopher. What an interesting writer.” So, I read his book. I can’t remember which one, because he’s written 50 of them. And I was asked about it, in one magazine, I cannot remember. I remember a different magazine. In Rolling Stone I was asked about Gary Zukav. And when Deepak Chopra saw it in this magazine, a friend of a friend of a friend said “How come you are reading my book? And would you like to meet?” And I said, “Absolutely.” And we met and I saw him give a lecture for two hours and he was hilarious and he had a great sense of humor. And I was like, “Thank god he’s funny.” Because if I was there for two hours and it wasn’t funny, I don’t know what I was going to do. And he has a great sense of humor. And the notion of being enlightened is to lighten up which is what my father always said. Two things he said. One was, “Nothing is so painful it can’t be laughed at.” And he said, “Now we’ve done our work, let’s have some fun.” My dad was from Liverpool. And I think those are two really simple and profound ideas.

MoviesOnline: And those things stayed with you your entire life?

MIKE MYERS: My whole life, yeah. These are sources of comfort and happiness. And this is how this was born. I thought about it since 1991 and since he died in 1994. But moreover, as I was reading, he’s kind of like what Carl Sagan is to physics, he is to matters philosophical. I’m not sure where the demarcation of spiritual, philosophical, creative and all that stuff is clearly marked in the Venn diagram of life. I think there are a lot of secondary colors in there. You know what I mean? I know that people would say, “What are you reading?” And as I would tell them the different philosophical things, [talking like his character, Guru Pitka] this voice emerged and I started talking like this. And I would say, “The only way out is in. Intimacy is ‘into me I see.’ It’s exclusive knowledge. You know, love without knowledge, knowledge without love, and then love with knowledge.” [resumes a normal voice] These are the things that he would talk about and the things that he would point me in a direction to read about and this voice emerged. Friends of mine would call me up and say, “Do the voice. I’m feeling depressed.” So, I’d be like, [resumes Guru Pitka’s voice] “The universe loves you.” [normal voice] And this is how it emerged sort of organically out of that. Things take a long time to gestate for me. I’m not a fast writer.

MoviesOnline: How long did it take you to do your first draft?

MIKE MYERS: I had the concept probably in ‘96. And then one thing leads to another. Like Jeffrey Katzenberg comes and says to me, “Would you like to do this animated movie called ‘Shrek’?” And I said, “What a terrible name.” (Laughs.) And three Shrek’s later. Four. Three done and one coming, I would have never predicted any of it. When I was a kid in Toronto, I had no idea that I’d actually get employed and remain employed. So, there is less -- it’s more like driving at night with beams that are low on the ground. You really can’t see so far ahead.

MoviesOnline: Was Mariska Hargitay your idea?

MIKE MYERS: It was a friend of mine, Eric Gilliland. I had done this as a stage show in LA, then I did it more recently in New York City. And at that time, a friend of mine who is a writer named Eric Gilliland, he wrote on “Roseanne.” I said, “Would you be my kind of main guy, my main disciple and talk to the audience?” And, he said, “Oh yeah. I’d love to.” And so, I said, “I have this whole fictional teaching system, but I don’t have a salutation, a fictional salutation.” And he went, “Mariska Hargitay.” And I went, “Wow.” And he said, “Mariska Hargitay is a good friend of mine.” And she’s since become a lovely friend of mine now. She came to the show, four shows later and every time he would say “Mariska Hargitay,” we’d hear, “Ha, ha.” And I’d go, “My god, that’s Mariska Hargitay.” Recently, she sent me an unauthorized T-shirt from the internet that says, “Mariska Hargitay, Mariska Hargitay.” So it’s come full circle. She’s awesome and when you get to know her, she is, in fact, a blessing. So it’s wonderful. Eric Gilliland is his name. He’s a writer on “Roseanne.” He actually got honored last night with all the “Roseanne” people at the TV Land Awards.

MoviesOnline: How did you come up with those philosophical concepts? And has Deepak seen the movie?

MIKE MYERS: I think he has seen the movie. He’s in the movie. He gets it. This is the remarkable thing. Everyone who showed up gets it. It’s silly and I feel that silly is the best delivery system for interesting ideas. When I was 19 in Toronto, the 784 Theater Company came to Toronto. And that’s 7 percent of the population in Britain owning 84 percent of the wealth. They are a very, very left wing theater company. And I was intrigued, because I thought, “How entertaining can this be?” John McGrath, who was the founder of the 784, wrote a book called “A Good Night Out.” And in it, he felt that even the most message-laden theater, which in this case would be convincing me, a 19-year-old kid from the suburbs, of the historical inevitability of dialectical materialism. That’s pretty heavy for somebody who’s a heavy metal kid who was also a punk rocker. I was sitting there going, “What is this?” By the end of it, I fell in love with the main girl. I laughed until I cried and I cried until I laughed. They were such great entertainers that by the end of it, I was starting to go, “Wow. What an interesting concept of dialectical materialism. What an interesting notion of financial inequity or whatever you want to [call it].” You know what I’m saying? Because, agitating propaganda requires that you’re the best entertainer possible because you can’t agitate, educate and organize if you’re not entertaining. And it blew my mind, because he said the entertainment starts at the poster, the entertainment starts at the name, the ticket price, the soda price, the type of seat, the air-conditioning, he had a whole, full-bore philosophy of entertainment. It’s blown my mind. And I thought of two movies that dealt with mutually assured destruction. One was “Fail Safe,” which is a melodrama and the other one is “Strangelove” which is a farce. And “Strangelove” is very silly, but if you were to think of a movie that frightens you more about the concept of mutually assured destruction, I think you would go with “Strangelove,” which is a very silly farce. Now, nothing I have done has touched the hem of the garment of “Strangelove” and I don’t think anything ever will. I think that that’s a once in every five generations masterpiece. But a person can aspire, and in terms of aspiring to something, Peter Sellers, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, “Strangelove” would be the ultimate movie for me. It’s the ultimate piece of entertainment that has one of the deepest messages ever. 

MoviesOnline: All of your movies have all these great musical numbers. When are you going to make a real musical?

MIKE MYERS: It’s funny, you know KCET, the local PBS channel, just had a pledge drive and they had a documentary on singing and dancing and then they break it up to do the pledge thing. And I went “I love these movies! I love ‘On the Town.’ I wanna make an ‘On the Town.’ I would love to.” This is what Jay Roach keeps saying to me, “Why don’t you do a musical?” And so, I would love to. I love it. I love “On the Town.” I love “An American in Paris,” “Gigi.” And, again, I’m a punk rocker. I’m sitting there going, “Wow! The colors! The world!”

MoviesOnline: Any chance of an ‘Austin Powers 4’?

MIKE MYERS: I would have to write it.  It’s one of 20 ideas, 10 to 15 to 20 ideas roughly, I haven’t really numbered them, that are sort of circling the airport waiting to land.

MoviesOnline: What do you want to do next? Are there any new characters circling in there you’d like to tackle next?

MIKE MYERS: I don’t know. I just did the MTV Movie Awards. That was a pure joy for me. I did also two characters, Bucky and Tristan and I enjoyed doing that too, so I never know. I don’t know quite how it works out. I don’t know. I promise you I don’t know.

MoviesOnline: How is “Shrek 4” going?

MIKE MYERS: That one I don’t know either, because I never see the script. You never see the script ever. You see a little bit ahead every time you go to record. I never get to record with the other people. You have to just so rely on your training and imagination of a green [inaudible], a ‘What if?’ And because Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas are so incredibly…(Laughs.) I could say his name all day. I love saying his name. Antonio Banderas! They are so great that down the line when you hear their recording and you respond off of it, you feel you’re in that world, but you’re actually like a goal judge in hockey for the most part.

“The Love Guru” opens in theaters on June 20th.