Besides starring in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and collecting royalties from Love Guru DVD sales, what’s Mike Myers been up to lately? Oil painting! On Monday, at a benefit for the Only Make Believe charity at the Box, Myers told us he got into his “latest passion†through his friend, artist Damien Loeb: “I asked Damien, ‘Is this possible? Like, can I do it?’ And he said, ‘Yes,’ and he’s been teaching me how to paint … I feel like I’ve made a friend of Damien and in painting that I’ll have the rest of my life. It’s very exciting.â€
According to Loeb, Myers is a natural. “You can’t really teach anybody,†he said. “I gave him the tips of the craft, and Mike ended up, in a very irritating fashion, being amazingly talented in painting. By the second painting he attempted, he’d already established that he knew what he was doing and was communicating.†The one piece of advice Loeb gave Myers? “Paint what you know. Paint what you love.†So Myers, who describes his style as “representational,†painted his dog, as well as friends and groups of friends. Would he ever sell the paintings? “Oh my God, no!†said Myers. (Not that anything’s selling in this market.)
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