Mike Myers went into depression when SNL sketches were cut
The 62-year-old star was a writer on the comedy series from 1989 to 1995 and has made occasional appearances over the years since, and he hated the dress rehearsal before the live show because it left him feeling "nervous" and deeply unhappy if his skits didn't make it through to the final programme.
He told Variety: "Dress rehearsal bums me out and I get nervous. Then if the sketch gets in, I'm like, 'OK!' I'm way more psyched that it got in, that I'm going to be in the show this week.'
'I used to go into a depression when my sketch got cut."
However, the Austin Powers star learned a new perspective from Conan O'Brien, who was one of Saturday Night Live's writers from 1988 to 1991.
He said: "Then one week, Conan had worked with a very, very hard host who had put him through the wringer.
"Conan was just a mess and saw that a sketch was cut and he goes, 'Perfect. It's all going perfectly to plan.' It got a big laugh, and I was like, 'You can be that way? You don't have to be depressed?'
"He taught me how to say, 'OK. It's not the end of the world.''
And Mike insisted he wouldn't have tried to fight for an axed sketch to be included.
He said: 'Never. I have witnessed people try it. That's when I go invisible. Too much tension! The captain has spoken, move on.'
But he has fought for certain jokes, though these days he'd go with the judgement of showrunner Lorne Michaels.
He said: 'When I was younger as a writer, if Lorne Michaels asked, 'Do you think you can make that work?' I'd say, 'Yes, I think I can.' Whereas now I think I'd be more likely to say, 'If you're not sure, let's not!''
Mike returned to SNL for the 50th anniversary special earlier this year, and less than two weeks later, he made his first appearance on a regular episode in 10 years when he played Elon Musk in the cold opener.
And the Wayne's World star is having "so much fun" playing the billionaire businessman.
He said: 'It's so much fun. Colin [Jost] and the crew write the Elons, and all I do is I add a little this and a little that, and mostly, I cut. A lot of people don't like to cut. I love to cut.
"If you've got eight jokes, three of them are OK and the five of them are strong, let's just go with the five!
'I've had so much fun doing it. When I did the 50th anniversary, I had a moment going, 'Do I know how to do this?' And I was like, 'Oh, of course, I know how to do this. I did this for six years.' "
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Superman's real-life kryptonite: The incredible shrinking cinema business
There's a new Superman movie in theatres this week and business is, as they say, boffo! ' Superman soars to $[US]122 million, third-biggest box office opening weekend of 2025,' raved Variety, referring to ticket sales in the United States and Canada. (In Australia, the film brought in $8.13 million for the weekend.) If you follow box-office news, it's all very normal: big bucks, records broken, blah blah blah. But there is one thing in Hollywood that's rarer than a substantive movie role for a female actor over 40, and that's the disclosure of the actual number of tickets a particular film sells on a particular weekend in a box-office report. That number can lead you into an alternative reality worthy of a David Lynch film. It also explains why going to the movies is so freaking irritating these days. Now, $US122 million ($187 million) might seem like a respectable haul for an opening weekend. However, if you look up the average cost of a movie ticket in the US, which is $US11 and change, and then do a little maths, you get the number of actual tickets that Superman sold: About 11 million. (The number is actually a lot lower; those big-franchise films get a disproportionate share of their incomes from high-priced Imax showings and the like, but that's another story.) Let's flash back to the last big Superman movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in 2016. That opened to $US166 million. Here's where we step through the looking glass. Movie ticket prices back then were $US8.50. More maths, and we get … 20 million tickets sold on the opening weekend. In other words, the Superman franchise has lost about half its fan base. Holy Kryptonite, Batman! Loading Hollywood's biggest secret: despite all the incessant talk about box-office records, ticket sales have been heading south – for decades. Per capita movie-ticket sales were down by a third in the first 20 years of this century. (Australia's admissions have declined similarly, from 92.5 million in 2001 to 55.4 million last year.) The pandemic made things much worse, of course, but the rebound hasn't brought us back. Fewer ticket sales mean someone has to pay, and it's coming out of the pockets of those among us who still go to see movies on the big screen. It feels a lot like being mugged. My wife and I went to the swanky Hoyts in Sydney's Entertainment Quarter to see F1: The Movie the other night. Tickets for the 'Xtreme Screen' showing were about $30 – and as I checked out online I saw that Hoyts had added a $5.10 'booking fee' to the order. (That extra 10 cents was a nice touch.)
The Age
a day ago
- The Age
Superman's real-life kryptonite: The incredible shrinking cinema business
There's a new Superman movie in theatres this week and business is, as they say, boffo! ' Superman soars to $[US]122 million, third-biggest box office opening weekend of 2025,' raved Variety, referring to ticket sales in the United States and Canada. (In Australia, the film brought in $8.13 million for the weekend.) If you follow box-office news, it's all very normal: big bucks, records broken, blah blah blah. But there is one thing in Hollywood that's rarer than a substantive movie role for a female actor over 40, and that's the disclosure of the actual number of tickets a particular film sells on a particular weekend in a box-office report. That number can lead you into an alternative reality worthy of a David Lynch film. It also explains why going to the movies is so freaking irritating these days. Now, $US122 million ($187 million) might seem like a respectable haul for an opening weekend. However, if you look up the average cost of a movie ticket in the US, which is $US11 and change, and then do a little maths, you get the number of actual tickets that Superman sold: About 11 million. (The number is actually a lot lower; those big-franchise films get a disproportionate share of their incomes from high-priced Imax showings and the like, but that's another story.) Let's flash back to the last big Superman movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in 2016. That opened to $US166 million. Here's where we step through the looking glass. Movie ticket prices back then were $US8.50. More maths, and we get … 20 million tickets sold on the opening weekend. In other words, the Superman franchise has lost about half its fan base. Holy Kryptonite, Batman! Loading Hollywood's biggest secret: despite all the incessant talk about box-office records, ticket sales have been heading south – for decades. Per capita movie-ticket sales were down by a third in the first 20 years of this century. (Australia's admissions have declined similarly, from 92.5 million in 2001 to 55.4 million last year.) The pandemic made things much worse, of course, but the rebound hasn't brought us back. Fewer ticket sales mean someone has to pay, and it's coming out of the pockets of those among us who still go to see movies on the big screen. It feels a lot like being mugged. My wife and I went to the swanky Hoyts in Sydney's Entertainment Quarter to see F1: The Movie the other night. Tickets for the 'Xtreme Screen' showing were about $30 – and as I checked out online I saw that Hoyts had added a $5.10 'booking fee' to the order. (That extra 10 cents was a nice touch.)
Perth Now
2 days ago
- Perth Now
Matt Shakman addresses Star Trek 4: ‘It changed dramatically'
Director Matt Shakman has revealed the fourth Star Trek movie had 'changed dramatically' before he exited the project in August 2022. The 49-year-old filmmaker was due to helm the next instalment in the Star Trek franchise, though had left the movie by the summer of 2022 due to scheduling conflicts with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Now, Shakman has revealed that his Star Trek movie was already in pre-production before he parted ways with the project. He explained to Variety: 'We had stages, we had crew, we were moving ahead.' However, Shakman admitted that plans for the fourth Star Trek movie had shifted significantly: the crew were let go, the stages were removed and the film 'didn't have a start date anymore'. Meanwhile, good progress on The Fantastic Four: First Steps was being made, and so Shakman dropped out of Star Trek to focus on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) blockbuster. While the director refused to give any details on what his Star Trek movie would have looked like, Shakman teased the main concept of the film hadn't been changed to his knowledge. He said: 'The core idea, I think, remains the same. I really hope they get a chance to make that movie.' Shakman was announced as the director for the fourth Star Trek film back in 2021, and the movie would have seen the return of Chris Pine's Captain Kirk and Zachary Quinto's Spock. While updates on the next Star Trek movie have been slow, Paramount Pictures has confirmed the project is still in development, though has not announced a release date for the film yet. Despite its development difficulties, the cast is still keen to return for another Star Trek movie. Zoe Saldana - who portrayed Nyota Uhura from 2009's Star Trek to 2016's Star Trek Beyond - said she would be 'grateful' if she were given the chance to make another Star Trek film. The 47-year-old actress told 'I just heard they're gearing up to do a new one with a younger, sort of, take on it ... I don't know if it's from the before or the after, but that they really still hope to grab all of us veterans and bring us back for one last round. 'Listen, I know it's a lot to wrangle a whole bunch of people with busy schedules. But working with [director] J.J. Abrams, and for J.J. Abrams at Bad Robot, was always just a wonderful and beautiful experience for me. So, if I get to do that one last time, I would be so grateful.' Meanwhile, Simon Pegg - who played Scotty in the Star Trek trilogy - said he would want to appear in a fourth Star Trek movie, though insisted the film would be 'forever tainted' by the untimely death of Pavel Chekov actor Anton Yelchin, who passed away at the age of 27 in June 2016 following a car accident. Appearing on Katee Sackhoff's podcast The Sackhoff Show, the Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning star said: 'I'd love to do more. Obviously it's been forever tainted because we lost Anton, and that was a really hard thing for everyone involved, and for the real world, let alone anything else. 'If we do come back, if there is another opportunity to come back, then I'd love to. Because as we were saying earlier on, it's a group of guys that I dearly, dearly love and don't get to see very often. It would be good to get back together with them.'
