Mike Myers received the last letter the late Beatles legend George Harrison ever wrote when he was shooting ‘Austin Powers in Goldmember’.
The 55-year-old comic star can recall how he was super stressed on a key day of filming on the third instalment of the spoof spy series which saw Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow and Steven Spielberg on set to film a key scene for the movie’s climax.
On that day, Myers misunderstood a phone message from his security supervisor which he misunderstood to be a letter containing a death threat, however, it turned out to be a note from George, who died on November 29, 2001.
Recalling the surreal day in an interview on ‘The Alec Baldwin Show’, he said: "We had to change the schedule to have Tom Cruise play Austin, Danny DeVito play Mini Me, Kevin Spacey play Dr. Evil, Gwyneth Paltrow played this character Nurse Dixie Normous, and Steven Spielberg is playing The Director … it was all on this one day, the movie within the movie. It cost $100,000 in just rescheduling everything.
"I wake up and it’s raining and it’s an outdoor shoot at Paramount and I thought, ‘Ah c**p, we’re dead! We only get them for one day. What are we gonna do?’ And then I switch on CNN and George Harrison has died, and I thought, ‘This is the worst day of my life’. I loved George."
Revealing how he could only make out the words "dead" and "letter" in his security guard’s phone message, Myers assumed he had also received a death threat on the same day but it turned out to be something far more poignant from the ‘Here Comes The Sun’ songwriter.
The 55-year-old actor added: "It’s raining, George Harrison has died, I’m inconsolable – and someone is trying to kill me. I get into the makeup trailer and there is Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and they’re all like, ‘It’s great Mike, don’t worry. We’ll go later than we have to…’ We do the scenes, it’s way funnier than written … and I’m still thinking, ‘Somebody wants to kill me, though.’ We wrap and there’s a knock at the door and it’s Gavin [security head] and he has a letter and I open it up and it’s the last letter George Harrison ever wrote. It says, ‘I’ve been looking all over Europe for a mini-you doll, but I haven’t found one.’ It turns out to be the best day of my life."
After 16 years away from the franchise, Myers is working on ‘Austin Powers 4’ and "it’s looking good".
The James Bond parody began in 1997 with ‘Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery’ in 1997 and was followed by ‘Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me’ in 1999, and then 2002’s ‘Goldmember’.
Mike Myers received last letter from George Harrison on Austin Powers set
