The tale of how Mike Myers came to star in the live-action adaptation of “The Cat In The Hat” is worthy of an entire story itself, but the short version is that after the actor backed out of starring in a movie based on his “Saturday Night Live” character Dieter, a flurry of lawsuits were filed between himself and Universal. Eventually, a settlement was reached, with Myers agreeing to make his next character-based movie for the studio, which turned out to be the Dr. Seuss flick. While one of the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time, his reputation for being difficult wasn’t far behind him, and it came into real bloom on this movie.
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Character actress Amy Hill (who can currently be seen on “UnREAL” and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend“), recently sat down for a career over with AV Club, and when asked about her worst filming experience, “The Cat In The Hat” topped the list. And her story is pretty incredible, so here it is:
The Cat In The Hat was with Mike Myers who, if I saw him today, I don’t think he’d even remember who I was. He is like a little hermit. He would come in and, I guess, be in hair and makeup. We would wait. I’d be there at the crack of dawn, waiting. We would all be waiting for Mike Myers to come.
He had his handlers dress his trailer, and his area was all covered with tenting because he didn’t want anybody seeing him. It was so weird. It was just the worst. It was like I was there forever, and my daughter was 2 and a half and I felt like I was missing her first everything. I was miserable. I just thought it was really rude for him to not take all of us into consideration.
And the director [Bo Welch] was really lovely, but it was his first time directing, and he deferred to Mike so much. Mike would do a take, and then he’d go over and look at the monitors, and then he’d talk to the director and then we’d do another take.
It was just a horrible, nightmarish experience. I don’t think he got to know anybody. He’d just be with his people and walk away. People would come and then he’d stand there. There was a guy who held his chocolates in a little Tupperware. Whenever he needed chocolate, he’d come running over and give him a chocolate. That’s what divas are like, I guess. Or people who need therapy.
Well, a good decade has passed since, and presumably Myers is in a better, less diva-ish place. He directed the pretty entertaining documentary “Supermensch: The Legend Of Shep Gordon” a few years back (in which Myers notes how Shep Gordon helped him through some tough times), and he recently published a book simply titled “Canada.” As for the movies, he’ll be returning to the big screen in “Terminal” featuring Margot Robbie and Simon Pegg. So good things ahead for Myers, who has hopefully shaken the worst excesses of fame. [via Yahoo]