A very British Mike Myers talks Bohemian Rhapsody and George Harrison on The Late Show
Noted Anglophile and lover of costumery Mike Myers came out on Wednesday’s Halloween night Late Show dressed as the most British person he could think of. That being, naturally, Major Harry Carlyle, the character played by actor Christopher Good in 1977's WWII movie A Bridge Too Far, who always carried his very British umbrella into battle with him and, as reenacted by Myers to host Stephen Colbert, died while proclaiming his innate, umbrella-clutching Britishness. Swapping out his era-appropriate helmet for an equally authentic red beret, Myers spent the rest of his time on the show regaling Colbert with a pair of his own uncanny encounters with extreme, celebrity-hero Britishness.
Myers, who plays a skeptical record executive in Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, told Colbert that, thanks to his lifelong relationship with the titular song, he accepted the small part without reading the script. Having bucked the studio and executive producer Lorne Michaels on his first ever film in order to get the now-iconic “Bohemian Rhapsody” head-banging scene into Wayne’s World (over studio pick “Welcome To The Jungle”), Meyers leapt at the chance to, once again, stick out slightly in a major motion picture as a heavily made-up Englishman.
Then, explaining to Colbert his family’s Liverpool roots and lifelong obsession with fellow Liverpudlians The Beatles, Myers told the story of how, on the day George Harrison died, Myers received what he called the last letter George Harrison ever wrote. On the set of the third Austin Powers movie, a security guard friend hand-delivered the cheeky fan missive from Harrison, mocking Dr. Evil’s use of the word “frickin’” as something a true Scouser would never say and explaining his plans for a talking Dr. Evil doll that, apparently, Harrison used to use to insult the other remaining Beatles at board meetings. “You just won life right there,” proclaimed Colbert to the still-awestruck Myers, who revealed he, understandably, has Harrison’s final missive framed like the frickin’ Constitution.