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In 1992, Nirvana, Sir Mix-A-Lot and Whitney Houston rubbed shoulders atop the music charts. “Roseanne” and “Murphy Brown” ruled on TV. And in male-dominated Hollywood, “Basic Instinct” and “A Few Good Men” were Hollywood’s big offerings.
But one female director would take the film industry by storm with a scrappy, low-budget comedy about a metalhead cable-access show in Aurora, Illinois. Based on the popular “Saturday Night Live” sketch, “Wayne’s World” expanded on the lives of Wayne (Mike Myers) — the charismatic mullet-wearer who still lived at home and filmed the show in his basement — and Garth (Dana Carvey), his soft-spoken, trusty and deeply quirky sidekick.
“Wayne’s World” was the second “Saturday Night Live” movie, after 1980’s “The Blues Brothers.” It starred two doofy slackers who launched a thousand catchphrases: Sha-wing! NOT. Exsqueeze me? We’re not worthy! Not to mention so many variations on regurgitation, it would make you hurl.
The still-hilarious movie, which popularized a fourth-wall-breaking style and the use of endless meta gags — including a very funny jab at product placement using blatantly displayed Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Doritos and Reebok logos — went on to make $183 million, equivalent to $334 million today. It’s still the highest-grossing movie based on an “SNL” sketch.
But to hear director Penelope Spheeris tell it, the success of “Wayne’s World” — shot in just 34 days — came as a major surprise. Spheeris, who at the time was known for directing two indie music documentaries, seemed like the perfect fit for the classic rock-worshipping pair. And, as she told The Post, she could work cheap: “It was my seventh movie, but my first studio movie; $14 million was a giant budget to me at the time — but for Paramount, it was nothing. And it was kind of cool, because we never got too much supervision. They kind of just let us go.”
On the 30th anniversary of “Wayne’s World,” Spheeris looks back at the complicated making of one of the most enduring buddy comedies of all time.
Carvey and Myers were not BFFs off-screen
Myers is, and was, a famously difficult performer who rubbed nearly everyone the wrong way. Spheeris has previously spoken about her differences with Myers, and said that he rewrote the script for “Wayne’s World” so many times that she had to institute a new rule: “If you give me something new, it has to be 24 hours before. Because if the prop guys have to get a gun rack in 10 minutes, that’s not gonna work.”
Spheeris has explicitly said that Meyers was the reason she wasn’t asked to direct the sequel. But she wasn’t the only one who had issues with the movie’s star.
Reportedly, Carvey — who Spheeris described as “very gentle, kind and sensitive” — quit the movie just weeks before shooting and had to be convinced to come back. Spheeris said she thinks their time on “SNL” working under the show’s famous creator Lorne Michaels made it difficult for them to get along.
“He teaches his players to compete with each other,” she said. “So when people speak of erratic energy between Dana and Mike, it’s a result of how they were taught by Lorne.”
Rob Lowe discovered he was funny
Lowe plays the villainous corporate honcho, Benjamin, a role that paved the way for his comic career. It came on the heels of his 1988 sex-tape saga, in which a 24-year-old Lowe was caught on video with a 16-year-old girl. “Lorne called me and said, ‘Penelope, what do you think about Rob Lowe? He could play Benjamin.’ I said, ‘Lorne, come on, you can’t do that. The guy was just caught in bed with an underage girl. We don’t want to give a guy like that a job.’ You know what his answer was? ‘In that case, we can get him cheap!’ And he did a great job. Rob says he surprised himself, that he was that funny.”
The actors balked at the “Bohemian Rhapsody” car head-banging scene
“Mike likes to emphasize his participation in choosing the song. But I will take credit on how it was shot. They said, ‘We can’t keep [head banging] because it makes our heads hurt!’ I said, ‘You have to.’ Mike said, ‘It’s not funny!’ I said, ‘Trust me. It’s funny.’ ”
Spheeris had to fight to cast Tia Carrere
“There were so many girls that were in the running for the role of Cassandra. And I knew, after many years of shooting music videos, that I needed somebody who really was a musician. I didn’t want to teach an actor how to play the bass. So I fought really hard for Tia, and there was a struggle. I’m so glad I won. She and I argued over the wardrobe all the time. Her choices were a little more, uh, kind of nightclub sleazy [laughs], like, you know, gold lamé. And I always tried to tone it down a little. Because I know what Lorne wants. He doesn’t want to go too far.”
Myers couldn’t drive
“If you look at how much driving there is in ‘Wayne’s World,’ you can imagine how I felt when we’re ready to start shooting and Mike says to me, ‘I don’t know how to drive.’ I’m like, ‘Now you’re telling me?’ So we had to give him driving lessons. And we didn’t have the budget for it, so it was Sears driving school. He was staying at the Four Seasons, and the valet would go, ‘Your car has arrived, sir.’ And it was Sears driving school.”
Myers wanted Aerosmith, not Alice
In the script, Wayne and Garth get all-access passes to a rock show. “Mike wanted Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, because they had been on the sketch before. But Aerosmith read the original script, and they didn’t want to be in the movie.”
Meanwhile, the role went to Alice Cooper — but he didn’t know he had a speaking part. “I had worked with Alice on a couple music videos, and I suggested him. So Alice thinks he’s just going to come in and perform his new song with his band. And he shows up and we go, ‘Oh, we’re going backstage.’ We hand him that whole Algonquin and Milwaukee speech, and he didn’t even know he had dialogue! To this day, he laughs about it. And I congratulate him. Not many people can learn three pages of dialogue in half an hour.”
Aerosmith did agree to be part of “Wayne’s World 2,” which Spheeris wasn’t involved in and didn’t do so very well. She said, “I kind of like it when karma comes back.”
Chris Farley was camera-shy
The late “SNL” cast member appeared briefly in the film as a security guard for a music bigwig. It was his first movie. “I got a call from Lorne: ‘Penelope, I’ve got this guy. He’s really, really funny, but you’ve got to be careful with him, because he’s very camera-shy.’ I’m like, ‘How can you send me an actor who’s camera shy?’ But he was. And I think the reason he added that jittery body movement thing to his very small role was because he was just trying to get away from being so nervous. But after that, I did a whole movie at Paramount with him, ‘Black Sheep.’ He was a sweetheart. What a terrible loss.”
Ed O’Neill was a Method actor
“Married With Children” star O’Neill, known for his deadpan comedy, played the strangely intense owner of the film’s donut shop. He gave it his all. “Ed was hilarious when we shot, because he never broke character. When we were sitting in that donut shop, he always had the character going, even between takes. He would sit over in the corner by himself and talk to himself like a psycho [laughs]. I never got to know the real Ed O’Neill, because he never broke.”
Led Zeppelin told the filmmakers: “No Stairway”
In the guitar store, Wayne is shut down when he plays the opening riff from “Stairway to Heaven” in violation of the store’s “No Stairway” sign on the wall. At least, he played it in the theatrical version of the film; it’s been replaced in subsequent versions. “I was told we had three notes. And that was fine, I could work with that. But then I think afterward, when Led Zeppelin saw the success of the movie, they came back and said, ‘Well, you guys made a bunch of money, so either cut it out or give us some money.’ I would have cut it out, too! Because that’s just a s – – ty move. How much money do those guys need?”
Being a female director was tough
“At the time, I knew the job of directing was extremely difficult and complicated. But it wasn’t until the MeToo movement fired up that I understood why it was so hard: Oh, it’s because they were discriminating against me! Luckily, I didn’t perceive it that way at the time. Because I think if you pitched a fit at that time, you would get fired, you know? Whereas now if you speak up, they’ve got to think twice,” said Spheeris, who went on to direct remakes of “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “The Little Rascals” as well as “Black Sheep,” which co-starred David Spade and Farley.
“But here’s the way I look at it, in the big picture. I feel very fortunate that I was able to make the movie that I did. And I was very fortunate to be able to make money doing that job. I made some money, I had a good time, I did some good work. I cannot complain.”
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