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[June 1999] Austin Powers was born out of trying to celebrate my father's life. My father's favorites were mine -- Peter Sellers, Monty Python, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore . . . my dad was a guy who loved to be silly; he had a highly prized sense of humor. When I would bring friends home to play table hockey in the basement, if my dad didn't think they were funny, he wouldn't let them in the house. "They can't come around", he'd say. :They're not bloody funny!"

I still believe that at any time the no-talent police will come and arrest me.

As a people, the English find male partial nudity and cross-dressing to be very funny. It's definitely a color on our palette, and I follow in that tradition.

Canada is the essence of not being. Not English, not American, it is the mathematic of not being. And a subtle flavour - we're more like celery as a flavour.

[when asked who some of his comic heroes were] Peter Sellers, Dan Aykroyd, the whole original SNL [Saturday Night Live (1975)] cast. Lorne Michaels is a hero of mine. I did a project on him in grade eight. He's a Canadian hero. He's a man of impeccable taste. And Gilda Radner was a big hero of mine.

[of Shrek der Dritte (2007), in which he again provided the character's voice] The first time you meet him, he's a self-loathing ogre who doesn't feel that he's worthy of love. In the second one, he doesn't feel worthy of marriage, and in this one he doesn't feel he's worthy of being the father of his country or being a father of a child. You know what I mean? It's a smart progression.

I love making stuff. There's a joy in having the first molecule of an idea, then testing it in front of audiences at secret shows that people only know about the day before. I videotape those, study them, enjoy being in the character and figuring out the movie.

If I went by all the rejection I've had in my career, I should have given up a long time ago.

I like smart jokes, I like dumb jokes, and I like dumb jokes done smartly.

[on the death of Chris Farley] I wasn't shocked, and I was very sad. Just straight up, lots of things you wished didn't happen.