During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mike Myers and director Jay Roach discussed the Austin Powers franchise. The original first film turned twenty this year. Here are highlights from the interview:
Mike Myers on coming up with the idea of Austin Powers: “After my dad died in 1991, I was taking stock of his influence on me as a person and his influence on me with comedy in general. So Austin Powers was a tribute to my father, who [introduced me to] James Bond, Peter Sellers, The Beatles, The Goodies, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. I wrote it in 1995, and the bones of the script came out in two weeks. It was one of those things where I didn’t know if anybody would get this movie who didn’t grow up in my house. But when I showed it to [director] Jay Roach — we had met at a party and become movie buddies — he gave me 10 pages of typewritten notes. Everything he said made it better.”
Jay Roach on dealing with the MPAA for the first film: “We got an R-rating. We had to negotiate and cut. The nudity blocking was something the MPAA wanted to be sure we didn’t go too far with: the cheeky phallic references, like Elizabeth biting the sausage and holding the melons up. But they were all pretty innocent body-shape jokes. The only thing they asked us to do in the final cut, which was kind of surprising to me, was they thought there was too much butt-cheek on Mike when he got thawed out, so I went for a slightly more profile version.”
Jay Roach on the possibility of a fourth film: “We have talked about [making a fourth movie] for 15 years. We have also always said we don’t want to do it unless we came up with something that lived up to the concepts in our mind. Until Mike feels like he has a concept that earns a fourth, it won’t happen. But if it did, we have all agreed that we would be delighted to get back into it.”
Mike Myers on if he would make a fourth: “I would love to do another, but you just have to see. I was devastated by my father’s death. But to have that turn into something that makes people happy is unbelievably satisfying. It’s that kind of stuff you never get used to or get tired of.”