What Happened to Mike Myers? Where He Is Now in 2026

If you came up in the ’90s, Mike Myers was inescapable. He was Wayne Campbell in his parents’ basement, the swinging spy Austin Powers, the loveable grump Linda Richman saying it was “like buttah” — and, eventually, the voice of a big green ogre named Shrek. Then, somewhere in the 2010s, he just sort of… disappeared. No scandal, no meltdown, just a gradual fade from the marquee. So whatever happened to one of comedy’s biggest names? As it turns out, he’s been having quite a 2025. Here’s where Mike Myers is in 2026.

01Profile

Full name

Michael John Myers

Born

May 25, 1963 (63 years old)

Birthplace

Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

Occupation

Actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer

Best known for

"Wayne's World" (1992), the "Austin Powers" trilogy (1997–2002), voicing Shrek

SNL years

Cast member, 1989–1995

A quick note before we go further: yes, he’s Canadian, and proudly so — a detail that, as you’ll see below, became surprisingly central to his recent career. The kid from Scarborough never really stopped being a hometown hero.

02The Rise

From Toronto to Studio 8H

Myers grew up doing comedy in Toronto, eventually joining the famed Second City improv troupe. In 1989 he landed a spot in the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” and it didn’t take long for him to become one of the show’s defining performers. He created an arsenal of beloved recurring characters, but two stood above the rest: Wayne Campbell, the metalhead host of a public-access show shot in his basement, and Linda Richman, the Coffee Talk host whose emotions ran so high she’d get “verklempt.” The “Wayne’s World” sketch was such a hit that it spun off into a 1992 feature film — a rare leap from sketch to box-office smash — and “Party on, Wayne! Party on, Garth!” entered the cultural bloodstream.

Austin Powers and the shagadelic ’90s

If “Wayne’s World” made Myers a star, “Austin Powers” made him a phenomenon. The 1997 spy spoof “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” started as a modest hit and grew into a juggernaut on home video, fueling two even bigger sequels: “The Spy Who Shagged Me” (1999) and “Goldmember” (2002). Myers wrote the films and played multiple roles in each — the buck-toothed hero Austin, the bald supervillain Dr. Evil, and more — and catchphrases like “Yeah, baby!” and “groovy” were suddenly everywhere. The trilogy grossed hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide.

The voice of an ogre

Then came Shrek. The 2001 DreamWorks animated film, with Myers voicing the gruff-but-tender ogre in a Scottish brogue, won the very first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and launched one of the most successful animated franchises in history. Across four films, Shrek became a generational touchstone — and arguably Myers’ most enduring creation, reaching kids who’d never seen a frame of Austin Powers. By the mid-2000s, Myers was one of the most bankable comedy stars on the planet.

03Stepping Back From the Spotlight

So why did he fade? There was no single dramatic exit — more of a slow drift. The turning point most observers point to is 2008’s “The Love Guru,” which Myers co-wrote and starred in. The film was a critical and commercial disappointment, and from there his on-screen output slowed to a trickle.

• 2008"The Love Guru" underperforms with critics and at the box office, marking the start of a long step back from leading roles.
• 2009–2010Myers turns to smaller parts (a cameo in "Inglourious Basterds") and focuses on his personal life.
• 2018A scene-stealing, heavily made-up supporting turn in the Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" reminds audiences he's still around.
• 2022Myers creates and stars in the Netflix comedy series "The Pentaverate," playing eight different characters — his most ambitious project in years.
• 2022He appears in David O. Russell's ensemble film "Amsterdam," another supporting role rather than a vehicle of his own.

For more than a decade, the public Mike Myers was mostly a memory — a face on a “Shrek” poster, a voice in a meme. He never courted the spotlight during these years, and by his own franchise’s standards, he was remarkably quiet. The comeback, when it came, arrived from an unexpected direction.

04The Austin Powers Question

For a generation of fans, there’s only one question that really matters: will there ever be an “Austin Powers 4”? It’s been more than two decades since “Goldmember,” and the demand has never gone away. According to reporting in 2025, the studio interest hasn’t gone away either.

Per a National Enquirer report picked up by outlets including Yahoo and AOL, Myers has reportedly been offered “tens of millions of dollars” to slip back into Austin’s velvet suit — and has reportedly turned it down. The reported reasoning, per those accounts, is that he simply doesn’t need the money and would rather prioritize his life off-camera. These are tabloid-sourced claims, so they’re worth taking with a grain of salt, but they line up with the broader picture of a performer who has spent years being selective about what he does and when. For now, the spy who shagged the world stays in the vault.

05What He Is Doing Now

A triumphant SNL50 return

The clearest sign that Mike Myers was back came in February 2025, when NBC aired “SNL50: The Anniversary Special.” Myers turned up to reprise Linda Richman in a “Coffee Talk” sketch, and the moment landed exactly as fans hoped — that nasally Queens accent, the oversized sunglasses, the “like buttah” of it all. In a Variety feature tied to the special, Myers reflected on the experience of returning to the show that made him.

“Going into a depression over cut sketches.” — Mike Myers, describing the SNL writing process, Variety, February 2025

It was a reminder that, decades on, Myers still treats sketch comedy with the intensity of someone who lives and dies by the laugh.

Playing Elon Musk on SNL

Just weeks after SNL50, Myers did something nobody expected: he became a recurring “SNL” player again. Starting with the March 1, 2025 episode, he debuted an impression of Elon Musk in the show’s cold opens — wielding a chainsaw, glitching like faulty software, and inserting himself into the week’s political headlines. He returned in the role across multiple episodes that spring. Musk himself was not amused, posting on X that “Humor fails when it lies,” according to reporting from Salon and others. For Myers, though, it was a startling late-career reinvention as a topical political impressionist.

”Elbows up” for Canada

Myers also leaned hard into his Canadian identity in 2025. During Canada’s federal election campaign, he appeared in a Liberal Party ad alongside then-Prime Minister Mark Carney, the two of them in red hockey jerseys. Carney quizzed Myers on Canadian trivia; Myers responded with “elbows up” — the Gordie Howe-inspired rallying cry that became shorthand for Canadian pushback against U.S. tariff threats and Donald Trump’s musing that Canada should be the “51st state.” Myers wore a jersey reading “Never 51.” As The Hollywood Reporter and CTV News reported, the cameo turned a comedy legend into an unlikely figure in a real political moment.

Back as Shrek

And then there’s the ogre. Myers is reprising Shrek in “Shrek 5,” the long-awaited fifth installment, with Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy also returning and Zendaya joining the cast as one of Shrek and Fiona’s triplets. A teaser unveiling the film’s new art style was released in 2025, sparking plenty of online debate. The film has been pushed back on the calendar — reporting indicates a 2027 theatrical release after earlier 2026 plans — but it confirms that the role most central to Myers’ legacy isn’t going anywhere. One report in 2026 even suggested he hinted at more Shrek films still to come.

06Summary

After more than a decade of keeping a low profile, Mike Myers spent 2025 doing something rare for a comedy icon of his era: he became relevant again on his own, unpredictable terms — not by rebooting his hits, but by showing up where no one expected him.

Mike Myers’ story isn’t a fall and a comeback so much as a long, deliberate breath. He stepped out of the spotlight when he wanted to, came back when something interested him, and reminded everyone that the guy behind Wayne, Austin, and Shrek still knows exactly how to surprise a crowd. Party on, Mike.