MIKE MYERS

The former Saturday Night Live and Austin Powers star returns to TV in The Pentaverate (May 5 on Netflix). Myers, 58, who also created and produces the satirical series, plays seven characters in its story about a secret society working to influence world events for the greater good since the Black Plague of the 1300s. His co-stars include Keegan-Michael Key, Ken Jeong and Jennifer Saunders.

Was The Pentaverate an idea influenced by the COVID pandemic? I’ve always been fascinated with the Black Plague and how it changed society, and then here we are with the pandemic of our own. But it’s pure coincidence. The fun part of making stuff is when things become strangely au courant when they were always there.

What’s your process to play multiple characters? Louie Zakarian, the makeup genius at Saturday Night Live, and I designed the makeup. I’ve worked with him for many, many years and we developed it together. The outside tells the inside; the inside tells the outside. That might be my favorite process in all of this, making the characters.

You brought back Dr. Evil for a Super Bowl LVI commercial. Now there’s a rumor that Austin Powers 4 might happen. I can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of such a program, but I would love to see it. I enjoy doing it. I had such a blast making that commercial, and I love working with those people.

What keeps you coming back to Shrek, whom you’ve voiced in four films? I love the emotional center of that character. This is going to sound a little serious, but the director Sidney Lumet used to say that people who we’ve dismissed as freaks are more like ourselves than we often care to admit. I love that the traditional villain in the world of fairy tales was the hero.