Mike Myers branded a 'diva' on 'horrible, nightmarish' The Cat In The Hat shoot

Character actress Amy Hill has described her time working with Mike Myers on ‘The Cat In The Hat’ as “a horrible, nightmarish experience”, due to the ‘Austin Powers’ star’s “diva” behaviour.

Hill, who played Mrs. Kwan the babysitter in the 2003 adaptation of the Dr. Suess children’s book, told The A.V. Club Myers made the whole shoot miserable with his demands that included having his trailer covered with tenting so that people couldn’t see him.

“It was so weird. It was just the worst,” Hill says. “It was like I was there forever, and my daughter was 2 and a half and I felt like I was missing her first everything. I was miserable. I just thought it was really rude for him to not take all of us into consideration.”

She adds that first time director Bo Welch (who was Razzie nominated as Worst Director for this, his once and only directorial gig) would often defer to Myers who was – at the time – one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, leading to multiple takes and delays.

“It was just a horrible, nightmarish experience” says Hill. “I don’t think [Mike] got to know anybody. He’d just be with his people and walk away. People would come and then he’d stand there. There was a guy who held his chocolates in a little Tupperware. Whenever he needed chocolate, he’d come running over and give him a chocolate. That’s what divas are like, I guess. Or people who need therapy.”

It’s long been rumoured that Mike Myers only agreed to star in ‘The Cat In The Hat’ for Universal Pictures after being sued by the studio for walking out of a proposed movie based around his ‘Saturday Night Live’ character Dieter.

Universal had agreed to pay Myers $20m (£13m) for the project, but the Canadian comic reneged on his promise after coming to a disagreement over the film’s script. Following a lengthy lawsuit with both sides countersuing each other, the dispute was settled in 2000 when, according to the BBC, he “agreed to make his next original character-based comedy with Universal, Imagine and Dreamworks.”

His next original character-based film was the Universal/Imagine/Dreamworks co-production of ‘The Cat In The Hat’, so you can sort of see why he wasn’t a happy chappy on set.

HT: The A.V. Club

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