Mike Myers hints at 'Austin Powers' reboot
It's been 21 years since the first "Austin Powers" movie debuted, but the star of the spoof spy franchise, Mike Myers, said he still gets asked by fans on the street to say the film's signature catchphrase: "Yeah, baby!"
The Canadian funnyman told "Good Morning America" that the likelihood of another "Austin Powers" film is "looking good."
"I can neither confirm nor deny a movie, the existence or non-existence of a movie, should a movie like that exist or not exist," Myers joked.
But, "it's looking good," he added, "So we’ll see what happens."
The father of three young children under the age of six said that he has chosen parts that allow him to stay close to home.
"Mostly what I've tried to do was just stuff out of my house, you know what I mean. I did a documentary for two years [Supermatch]. I've been developing stuff and I've been doing small parts -- just stuff that didn’t keep me far away from my family."
He said he told his children about his career at a young age, reasoning that "a lot of the jokes will fly over their head." And while his resume is full of popular characters and iconic catchphrases, he said he is most often asked by fans to say "Yeah, baby!"
"When you have three kids and you’re on the street [they ask], 'Daddy, why are they saying 'Yeah, baby!' to you?' Paulina, my youngest, is like, 'But I'm the baby.'"
"I made the decision to tell them what I did for a living early on," Myers said. "Not in any way to compare the magnitude, but I saw this thing that Danny Harrison didn't know his dad was in The Beatles until he was about 11 or something," he said of legendary British musician George Harrison's son.
After telling his kids about his fame, he said his son, Spike, recently whispered to him on vacation: "'Dad can I tell you a secret? I'm your number one fan.'"
"So I think we did the right thing," Myers said, smiling.
Myers said he was a huge fan of "The Gong Show" growing up, so when he got the call to host the reboot, he genuinely thought his own brother, Paul, was pranking him.
"My brother Paul will often call me up [pretending] like he's Paul McCartney," he said, offering up his best imitation of the iconic musician's voice. "For years, I'd been telling people my favorite show is 'The Gong Show.' They called me and I literally thought I was being punked by my brother Paul. Then when I found out it was for real. I thought, well what if I played it like this English guy, Tommy Maitland?" he said of the quirky suggestion, which was well-received by ABC and Sony executives.
After a year of pretending to be a random unknown guy and not, in fact, Mike Myers, he said it was time to pull back the curtain on his own charade.
"This time around, I thought people would think I was insane after so many reports that said 'It's Mike Myers' -- for me to say 'No, it isn't,'" he explained of revealing he is the show's real host.
Myers said the amateur talent show "has everything I like."
"People can fly their freak flag, the big prize is $2,000.18, so it's a nice chunk of change but it's not perhaps life-changing," he said. "None of these people are interested in [their act] as a career but they are interested in what I was interested in as a kid, which is making people laugh in kitchens at parties."
As for what talent he thinks he could perform for the judges, Myers cited his "ability to speak French with a Scottish accent."
"What would get me gonged? Three seconds into any given song that I start to sing. I'm tone deaf," he confessed, laughing.
