When Mike Myers stood on stage during the closing credits “goodnights” on Saturday Night Live in March, he opened up his vest to display a political statement on his shirt that read, “Canada is not for sale.”
Now, the Canadian comedian is opening up about why he wanted to take a moment to support his country on live TV, as well as the words he mouthed to the camera.
According to a new interview with the New York Times, Myers wasn’t planning on making a personal political statement during his SNL appearance in the March 1 episode hosted by Shane Gillis. But, the comedian revealed, “I got angrier and angrier.”
The Austin Powers and Shrek star couldn’t stop thinking about Elon Musk saying that Canada is “not a real country,” and the disrespect shown by President Donald Trump by calling Canada “the 51st state” and calling Prime Minister Trudeau “Governor Trudeau.”
“There’s no greater pain than being betrayed by a friend,” Myers told the outlet. So he decided to flash his “Canada is not for sale” shirt on SNL, and he mouthed the words “elbows up” twice into the camera (as a reference to legendary Canadian hockey player Gordie Howe’s signature way of dealing with unwarranted, aggressive violence on the ice).
“What happened came from my ankles and from my brain and from my heart, and it was not about me — it was about my country,” Myers explained. “I wanted to send a message home to say that I’m with you, you know… What’s happened has really hurt our feelings. We love America. We love you guys. We don’t understand what this madness is.”
Will Heath/NBC via Getty
Mike Myers flashes a ‘Canada Is Not for Sale’ shirt on ‘SNL’
Myers has both a Canadian and American passport. He currently lives in New York and Vermont after moving to America in 1988 for his career, but said he still travels back to Toronto often.
“I am also an American citizen, and I took my oath very seriously,” Myers said. “That’s what’s so crazy. Americans are the last people you would think would ever be a threat to us.”
Myers, who was an SNL cast member for six years in the late ’80s and early ’90s, has now appeared as Musk three times this season, including portraying him wielding a chainsaw in the episode in which he made the political statement on his shirt.
“To the extent that Elon Musk is involved in our democratic government, it goes against how I feel as a Canadian,” he said. “We don’t have a distrust of the government. We have a belief in good government… Fascism doesn’t like to be ridiculed; it likes to be feared. Satire is an important tool in the toolbox to say that this is not normal — that the cuts he’s making are not normal.”
In the March episode, Myers showed up in the cold open that satirized President Trump’s disastrous White House meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Myers, playing Musk, crashed the meeting in jeans and a T-shirt (which James Austin Johnson’s Trump praised after making fun of Mikey Day’s Zelenskyy for wearing the same thing), holding up a chainsaw.
Will Heath/NBC via Getty
Mikey Day, Mike Myers, James Austin Johnson, and Bowen Yang on ‘SNL’
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“Donald, what are you doing in my office?” Myers’ Musk said. “You know I’m the president now, right?” Awkward pause. “I’m kidding. I’m kidding,” he added, laughing, and then paused again. “…Maybe not?”
After making fun of Musk’s recent moves as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and joking about “firing the nonessential employees, like air traffic controllers,” he announced a new initiative: the Department of Undoing Child Health Care and Education, otherwise known as DOUCHE. “DOUCHE is going to be epic,” Myers’ Musk said. “DOUCHE is going to really clean everything out well.”
Watch a video of Myers’ full sketch below.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
