Mike Myers on Fighting For ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ Getting Final Letter From George Harrison

Mike Myers discussed the cyclical nature of his relationship with the Queen hit “Bohemian Rhapsody”: how he went from head-banging to the song in Wayne’s World to playing a cantankerous record exec in the new Queen biopic on The Late Show Wednesday.

Myers said the iconic Wayne’s World scene, in which the characters lip-sync “Bohemian Rhapsody,” was inspired by his older brother, who once pulled over the car while the song was playing on the radio and assigned everybody a “Gallileo.” “If you took somebody’s ‘Gallileo,’ you got beat up, basically,” Myers cracked.

While making Wayne’s World, Myers said he had to fight to use “Bohemian Rhapsody” over the objections of the studio, which was insisting on a Guns ‘N Roses song. Myers even threatened to quit the movie, but he eventually convinced producer Lorne Michaels and Paramount to let him use the Queen song.

Several decades later, Myers said he got a call asking him if he not only wanted to be in a movie called Bohemian Rhapsody, but play the EMI executive that told Queen they couldn’t put “Bohemian Rhapsody” on their record. “And I was like, ‘Yeah,'” Myers said. “And they were like, ‘Do you want to read the script?’ And I was like, ‘No, not really, I’m in! Just tell me when and what to wear!'”

Later in the segment, Myers revealed another profound career-music connection – this one, with the late Beatle and fellow Liverpool son, George Harrison. While working on Austin Powers 3, Myers received a letter from Harrison, which turned out to be one of the last the musician wrote before his death in 2001. “It’s now in a frame in a house, like what the Constitution is in,” Myers said.

After Myers received the letter, he learned that Harrison, who’d lost his voice due to illness, would use a talking Dr. Evil doll to communicate at meetings. Myers recalled, “The only thing he would say was, he would pull the chord and say, ‘Why must I be surrounded by frickin’ idiots.'”