Why Did It Take 20 Years For Dana Carvey To Forgive Mike Myers?

Jacob Shelton
Updated September 23, 2021 146.6K views 13 items

Dana Carvey and Mike Myers, the stars behind Wayne’s World, were introduced to the Saturday Night Live audience in the late 1980s. After their "Wayne’s World" sketch became wildly popular, a film was greenlit and the relationship between the comedy duo was never the same. 

There’s no single inciting incident behind the Dana Carvey Mike Myers feud, but rather a series of passive-aggressive jabs and one very specific Lorne Michaels impression. After the failure of Wayne’s World 2, the two went their separate ways and their careers took very different paths. Then they stopped speaking and it looked to be the end of their friendship. After two decades, Carvey says he's forgiven his old comedy partner, though the men haven’t actually spoken about their problems face-to-face. These are the incidents that led to their falling out.

  • Dana Carvey Was Originally The Bigger Comedian

    Dana Carvey Was Originally The Bigger Comedian

    The lingering animosity between Carvey and Myers dates back to the entertainers' earliest days. At first, Carvey was considerably more established as a comedian than his Wayne's World costar. Before joining SNL, Carvey worked as a stand-up in San Francisco and palled around with Robin Williams. When Myers joined the cast, he'd only appeared in bit parts in television films and on a Canadian sketch show called It's Only Rock & Roll. By the time Myers arrived, Carvey's impressions and characters like Church Lady had made him a household name.

  • There Was Long-Standing Tension Over Getting Cast In Sketches

    There Was Long-Standing Tension Over Getting Cast In Sketches

    In the late '80s and early '90s, SNL's roster was stacked with comedic talent. With slightly less than an hour and a half to fill on a show, it's not a surprise that comedians fought to get material on the air. Both Carvey and Myers were at the top of their game, with Carvey handling political impressions and Myers throwing out off-the-wall characters. Lorne Michaels, the show's creator, may have had a bias towards the latter. He once told EW, "There was nobody doing what Mike was doing."

    The perception that Myers was the golden boy of comedy must have driven a wedge between the two comics, even if they were both doing great work. Performing on Saturday Night Live is considered to be one of the most stressful jobs in entertainment, and the pressure of the show couldn't have helped the tension between Carvey and Myers. 

  • Neither Comedian Intended To Be A Part Of A Comedy Duo

    Neither Comedian Intended To Be A Part Of A Comedy Duo

    The stars of Wayne's World may have worked together - with Carvey as Garth playing second fiddle to Myers for years - but neither of them ever thought they were a duo. They didn't write together, and when it came to Wayne and Garth, Myers simply invited Carvey to play. In 1993, Carvey told Rolling Stone, "I don’t think there was any malice in [trying to cut Garth out of the film]; I just don’t know if Mike had a comedy team in mind. It’s Wayne’s world, and he’s the guy."

    Carvey echoed those sentiments 23 years later in an interview with Howard Stern. He spoke about how well the two worked together, despite the fact that they rarely got along:

    We were never meant to be a comedy team, Mike just invited me into the sketch but I’m really grateful that he did. He’s brilliant at creating these constructs… Later in your career you realize how great it is to have someone who cares that much, so when I had Mike next to me I was always comfortable because someone was always working his ass off.

  • Mike Myers Was Insecure About 'Wayne's World' And Carvey Knew It

    Mike Myers Was Insecure About 'Wayne's World' And Carvey Knew It

    Even though he'd been performing the Wayne Campbell character for years, Myers was never confident about the film or his place at the head of it. Various sources have stated that Myers thought his costar would usurp his popularity, with one going so far as to say, "Mike didn’t want Dana in the movie because he felt insecure that someone who had his own creative ideas would get in the way."

    Throughout the scripting phase for Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2, Carvey joked that he'd be pushed out with each subsequent draft. While Garth makes it through both films with a fair share of screen time, Carvey says that his character was always meant to be someone who "worships" Wayne. 

  • Myers Resented Garth's Popularity

    Myers Resented Garth's Popularity

    There's something about Garth that makes the audience want to pick him up and give him a hug. Even though he worships Wayne, he has a casual, almost puppy-like style that endears him to the audience. Even before Wayne's World was a film, Myers was worried about Garth overshadowing his creation. 

    Initially, Carvey stepped into the role of Garth as a favor, but when the sketch took off, it was impossible to excise one of the main components. During every aspect of production, Myers attempted to control his creation. Whether it was by diminishing Garth's role in the script or editing process, he wanted to make sure that audiences understood Wayne was the focus. 

  • Carvey Quit ‘Wayne’s World’ Before Filming Began

    Carvey Quit ‘Wayne’s World’ Before Filming Began

    Rather than go into the production of Wayne's World with everything copacetic, Carvey quit the film during pre-production with only a few weeks left before principal photography. The actor told Howard Stern that his leaving the cast wasn't a ploy, but rather something that he felt he had to do to keep his integrity. 

    According to Carvey, even though he wasn't a screenwriter for the film, he made suggestions and Garth-specific additions to drafts of the script. However, when new drafts were sent his way, he discovered that his notes were unaddressed and his additions removed. Rather than appear in a glorified cameo, he left the production. 

    In the end, the script was rewritten to give Garth a more substantial role and Carvey returned to the picture. 

  • There Were Disagreements Over Who Said The Funniest Lines

    There Were Disagreements Over Who Said The Funniest Lines

    It makes sense that, as two of the funniest people alive in 1992, Carvey and Myers disagreed over who said the punchlines in a sketch. But in a feature film, the characters are bound to the narrative. It wouldn't make sense for Garth to suddenly make a joke that Wayne was going to make.

    That logic wasn't on set during the production of Wayne's World. Even though a representative for Myers told Vanity Fair that the two actors weren't bickering on the set and the disagreements between the men were "overstated," he admitted that there was an issue with who should be saying what during principal photography. 

  • Carvey Felt Like Myers Let The 'Wayne's World' Set Get Out Of Control

    Carvey Felt Like Myers Let The 'Wayne's World' Set Get Out Of Control

    Members of the Wayne's World production crew tend to fall into two camps when discussing the making of the 1992 film: they're either very open about the tension on set or downplay how hard Myers was to deal with. According to director Penelope Spheeris, things were so fraught on set that she had to shoot scenes several different ways to appease the cast, the writers, and herself. 

    Spheeris said the most difficult moment was during the "Bohemian Rhapsody" scene, and the number of times she wanted to shoot it in order to make sure everything was perfect: 

    [Myers] was emotionally needy and got more difficult as the shoot went along. You should have heard him b*tching when I was trying to do that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ scene: ‘I can’t move my neck like that! Why do we have to do this so many times? No one is going to laugh at that!

    That was hardly the last argument that Myers had with his director. Even when the film performed well above expectations in the test screening, the star was unhappy with the cut and blamed Spheeris for what he thought was the issue. In a DVD retrospective of the film he explained: 

    I couldn’t watch it. I thought it was awful. I was inconsolable, and Lorne who has more experience than I do was looking at me as if I was insane because he knew it played really great... I just saw jokes that didn’t play, as opposed to a whole bunch of jokes that did play. 

  • Carvey Thinks Myers Stole His Impression Of Lorne Michaels To Create Dr. Evil

    Carvey Thinks Myers Stole His Impression Of Lorne Michaels To Create Dr. Evil

    One of the cardinal sins in the comedy community is stealing another comedian's joke. The same goes for impressions. In an interview with Howard Stern in 2019, Carvey told the host that he was one of the first people on SNL to figure out how to do a Lorne Michaels impression. 

    After listening to the show's creator complain about one episode's lack of a first act, Carvey imitated the voice of Michaels - and while he didn't do the impression on screen, he did it a lot behind the scenes. The one specific thing that Carvey made up for his Lorne Michaels impression was putting his pinky finger up to his lips. When he later saw Myers as Dr. Evil basically perform his impression, he knew his act had been copied. But he never brought it up with his former costar. 

    Carvey told Stern that, while he initially felt odd when he saw the character appear, he "finally let it go." He appreciates the film as something "brilliant" and believes Dr. Evil is a "great character." Carvey also recognizes that it would be a headache to stay mad at someone over an impression because "after a while everyone started doing Lorne."

  • 'Austin Powers' Became A Box Office Smash

    'Austin Powers' Became A Box Office Smash

    After Wayne's World 2 performed well below expectations, Myers and Carvey didn't get back together to recreate the magic of their first outing. Much like The Beatles before them, the two went their separate ways and started solo careers. Carvey appeared in a series of box office failures like Clean Slate and Trapped in Paradise, while Myers waited until 1997 to release Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. 

    The first Austin Powers film was very well received. Both a critical and commercial success, it made $67 million on a $16 million budget. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and called it "a funny movie that only gets funnier." The following films in the franchise continued to outperform Carvey's work, with The Spy Who Shagged Me making $312 million and Goldmember making nearly the same amount in its worldwide gross. 

  • Carvey's Movie 'Master Of Disguise' Was A Huge Flop

    Carvey's Movie 'Master Of Disguise' Was A Huge Flop

    In 2002, the same year that Myers released Goldmember, Carvey released his own spy film called Master of Disguise. The film's premise allowed Carvey to work his impression magic while giving him a starring vehicle free of any other big-name talent. The movie was a failure.

    Roger Ebert gave the film one star and called it a "desperate miscalculation" by "a party guest who thinks he is funny and is wrong." Even though the film made over $40 million on a modest budget, it's still considered to be one of the worst movies of the 2000s and the end of Carvey's film career.

  • Twenty Years Later, Carvey Reportedly Forgave His Former Costar

    Twenty Years Later, Carvey Reportedly Forgave His Former Costar

    In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosted a look back at Wayne's World featuring the film's stars as well as its director and Lorne Michaels. While Carvey and Myers sat next to each other, they lacked the chemistry that made them such an entertaining duo. They barely interacted or acknowledged one another aside from basic pleasantries. 

    Since that night, a lot has changed for Carvey. He told Howard Stern that it took 20 years and a trip to therapy to forgive Myers for taking his Lorne Michaels impression, but he also said that he's never spoken about his issues directly with his former costar. Carvey joked that he'd like to address the issue on "national radio" before moving on to less brooding topics. 

  • Carvey Has Compared Their Feud To A Sibling Rivalry

    Carvey Has Compared Their Feud To A Sibling Rivalry

    When asked if he and Myers speak regularly, Carvey admitted that they rarely catch up. When they do, the comedian said they fall into sibling-esque habits. 

    Carvey told Howard Stern, "When we see each other we just kind of talk all over each other. He had two brothers. He was kind of small like I was, and he was bullied a little bit." It's clear that the two comics have a lot in common, and even if there's never going to be a Wayne's World 3, it's good to know that they can get along when they have to.