Mike Myers Rejected an Offer From Jamie Lee Curtis to Cameo in the ‘Halloween’ Franchise
Actor Mike Myers is well aware that he shares a similar name to one of cinema’s most notorious slashers. Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to play on the comedian’s connection to her onscreen nemesis, but Myers wasn’t having it.
Jamie Lee Curtis wanted Mike Myers to cameo in a ‘Halloween’ movie
Curtis has been grappling with several different versions of Halloween slasher Michael Myers over the years. She appeared in seven out of the 13 Halloween movies playing Laurie Strode. In 1998, she returned to the franchise for Halloween H2O. The movie focuses on Laurie two decades after her first encounter with Michael Myers. Curtis was drawn to the thriller due to the new direction the movie took her character in.
“I knew that if I made a movie 20 years later that showed where Laurie Strode was. That showed Laurie Strode had no life because her life was a prisoner of this experience 20 years ago, and you bring Michael Myers back into that world, she would not only obviously react, but that there would be a moment in the movie that she would turn it around. And go after [Michael Myers],” Curtis once said on take2markTV.
At the time, Curtis was also interested in injecting a little bit of comedy into Halloween H2O with a Mike Myers cameo. Myers was already a hot commodity at the time thanks to starring in the Austin Powers movies. Curtis perhaps thought audiences would be thrilled to see the comic actor in her franchise. Myers, however, declined the offer.
“When we were doing Halloween H2O, we did ask Mike Myers to do a cameo where he’d just walk down the street past me. I’d just do one of those [double takes]. He said no. I understand,” Curtis told Entertainment Weekly.
Michael Myers had an impact on Mike Myers early on in his career
Myers got his big break appearing on Saturday Night Live. He was recruited by the sketch comedy show after years of honing his craft as a comic actor from a young age. Comic actor Martin Short saw his performance in the Second City touring company.
Saturday Night Live creator took the recommendation from Short and others, hiring Myers without an audition. But Myers’ name was already somewhat popular and well-known thanks to John Carpenter’s Halloween franchise. And it was a coincidence that others couldn’t help bring up.
“I get on Saturday Night Live, which is exciting. And then I go to cash a check from NBC. I went way back when to the chemical bank. And I went, and the cashier said, ‘Michael Myers, you’re not gonna kill me, are you?’ And I was like, ‘I’m finally on a TV show, and the name of a mass-murderer, fictional though he might be, has already happened,” Myers said in an interview on Chris Van Vliet.
Jamie Lee Curtis refused to talk to the actor who played Michael Myers
When it comes to the actual Michael Myers, Curtis wanted to maintain the relationship she had with the killer even behind the scenes. To do this, she made a conscious effort to avoid being around the actor who played Michael Myers.
“I stay away from Michael at all times. We don’t hang out. There’s no hanging out at all. All of it has to be real and scary,” Curtis said in an interview with Yahoo.
The actor shared that she wouldn’t even promote any of her films with someone dressed like Michael Myers.
“I take my job really seriously. I can have fun occasionally but, even so much as when we’re doing promotion,” she said. “They go ‘we’re gonna have a Michael Myers’ and I’m like ‘no you’re not, not with me’. Let’s not trivialize this. Why would anyone go see a movie if I’m f***ing around with Michael Myers? I take it really seriously.”
Curtis make take her role in the Halloween franchise seriously, but her attempts to include actor Mike Myers proves she’s not above winking at the audience.
