For the first time since exiting Saturday Night Live in 1995, comedic actor Mike Myers is once again a TV star, so to speak, with the release of his new Netflix series The Pentaverate, a delightfully absurd story of local journalists, secret organizations and a growing trust in conspiracy theories. Myers portrays a variety of characters within the show’s universe, with a smattering of excellent co-stars filling out the roles that the Wayne’s World vet didn’t take on, including the always exuberant Ken Jeong. The Masked Singer host just so happens to be a superfan of Myers, and told CinemaBlend that being part of The Pentaverate amounted to one of the best experiences of his professional career.
Without getting bogged down with spoilery details, suffice to say Ken Jeong plays a casino-owning mogul named Skip Cho, whose knowledge about chaos theory is almost as expansive as his adoration of powdered stimulants. The role allowed Jeong to share quite a few scenes with Mike Myers throughout the six-episode stretch — which is largely the case for everyone, considering how many characters Myers played — and when CinemaBlend spoke to Jeong and fellow co-star Debi Mazar ahead of The Pentaverate’s release, the Community vet was overflowing with praise and adoration for the comedy series’ creator. In his words:
Honestly, this is one of my favorite projects that I've ever done because I've just grown up idolizing him. He's one of the reasons why I got into comedy. I'd seen Austin Powers 2 in theaters, like, by myself multiple times. I just know his work so well. I really just wanted to watch - more than me, more than for myself - I really just wanted to watch his process. I was just obsessed with how he does it, and I've always been obsessed with how he does it, and I got to see it firsthand. He's a unicorn. He's this once-in-a-lifetime talent.
I love the idea of Ken Jeong chilling by himself in a movie theater, completely agog while watching the introduction of Myers' Fat Bastard. How many friends did Jeong tell to get in his bell-lay?
One of the spotlights of Netflix’s May releases, The Pentaverate seems like it’d be the ideal project for anyone like Jeong who’d want to get fully invested in watching Mike Myers in his element, since the beloved Canadian was the glue bringing the project together. Ken Jeong continued laying out the compliments, drawing attention to just how many different talents Myers showcased both on screen and behind the scenes.
It's one thing to be an amazing performer, it's one thing to do dialects, and one thing to do character work, but he's also the showrunner. He showruns this and then does all this. He's a completist. There's no one more complete than Mike, and he is involved in every nuance, from from the set deck to the post-production, he's a completist. And just to watch him is literally - I'm a big NBA fan - it's like LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant all in one, and he's the coach, you know, and the general manager and the owner of the team. He is a synthesis of western comedy in many ways.
How many actors working today could be compared to the athletic trifecta of LeBron, MJ, and Durant? (Donald Glover, perhaps, although he also might be the one to make that comparison himself.) To Jeong’s point, it’s rather amazing that Mike Myers and his writing team crafted these six scripts knowing just how much work needed to happen to pull everything off, and was then able to pull off showrunner duties on top of having to sit in the makeup chair for hours and hours amidst filming for all of his various characters. It’s a wonder he didn’t make one of his roles someone who sleeps a lot, just to have a point in his day when he could lay back and relax a little.
Ken Jeong also had praise specifically for how Mike Myers crafted the role of Skip Cho, and not only because it was geared for Jeong in the first place, but for how there was still a certain amount of narrative depth for a role that could have easily served solely for one-liner comedy.
And so for me, he'd written this part with me in mind, and he had a vision for my character, and even when I'm just doing my thing, there is an intent to that. There is there's a reason and a purpose. And he was always tracking that. I could do some scattershot ad libs or something, and you know, my process is a lot less nuanced. Sometimes I'm doing it just to make people laugh in the room, sometimes I was doing stuff just to make Mike laugh, just for me; I didn't care if they use it in the final cut. I really didn't, I didn't care. I was having too much fun to care. But he would, actually, even while I'm doing my thing, there was always an intent and purpose, and I was tracking that. And it was lovely. It was lovely. And like I said, it's one of my favorite things I've ever done.
I think it’s safe to say that Ken Jeong appreciates Mike Myers quite a bit more than he does a certain former politician who was unmasked this season on The Masked Singer. And now let’s start the speculation train regarding Myers being one of the celebs in Season 8. Considering the past two years have seen him reprising Wayne Campbell and Dr. Evil for Super Bowl commercials, it would be awesome if the SNL vet performed as one of his many fictional characters, as opposed to himself, to really throw the judges for a loop.
The Pentaverate is currently available to stream for anyone with a Netflix subscription, and it absolutely should be watched by anyone who has ever enjoyed anything from Myers’ career, since it synthesizes the comedian’s influences and sense of humor splendidly.
