Q: There should be a ‘Shrek 4,’ when it comes around to recording for that movie, would either of you be interested in recording together such as the cast of ‘Surf’s Up’ did?  To allow for more improvisation.

MM: No, I like this process. Because, I start to fall in love with Puss and I fall in love with Donkey and Fiona. And when I get there it’s like a radio play. I mean I like them all, who hasn’t fallen in love with Antonio? (Laughs.) Who hasn’t? (Laughs.)  But there is something great, because in the process they don’t even know what the script is and they are constantly evolving it.  I don’t think it actually… 

AB: It wouldn’t be possible.  It wouldn’t be possible to be so creative.  Because if you made an appointment with all the actors in one session for a week, right? And the movie would be locked. There would be no possibility to grow into the movie, developing creatively. In that year and a half many things happen. Characters go in one direction that you want to develop that story even more and if we do that, it would be impossible to put these ten people together, eight, nine times together in a year and a half, because we have many different projects. Not only the fact that we are not working together, I think it is thought in that way, because it allows them to rethink the movie in the process of creating it.

Q: Mike, Shrek has a lot more to ponder in this movie. When you saw the script did you think, ‘Oh, great, more stuff to chew on’ for Shrek?

MM: Oh, yeah. I feel extremely well served in terms of stuff to play. In the first movie it’s getting over the self -- he has to learn to love himself in order to be in a marriage. And in this one he needs to learn to love himself in order to step into fatherhood or be the king of a country. For me, I approach this as a dramatic part with some comedy. And that’s me happiest. I like making stuff making stuff, just believing and making, that’s the fun part. So, I was really happy that they – and that unity of 1, 2 and 3 is what I’m most blown away by…

Q: Are you currently writing anything right now and who do you think is going to win the cup?

MM: Oh, gosh. The problem is that hurts.  The hockey one.  We’ll, I’ll make a prediction the Leaf’s are not winning the Stanley Cup. Ah, the pain every year. Why do I put myself through it?  I get so emotionally involved.  Buffalo, I didn’t watch this last week, I just got too busy. Buffalo is still doing good? 

Q: They are tied.

MM: They’re tied?  They’ll win.  I predict Buffalo. Now, on the other thing.  On the average I take about three or four years between movies, because I create them, then I write them, then I produce them and then film them.  In two months I’m starting a movie called ‘The Love Guru’ which I spent the last two and a half years developing. I came up with this character and I would tour it in theaters in New York.  Just have little secret shows. The Marx Bros. used to tour their movies for a year before they filmed them. I did this same process with ‘Austin Powers.’  When I did ‘Wayne’s World’ I had ‘Saturday Night Live’ to tour it.  When I left ‘Saturday Night Live,’ I toured ‘Austin Powers.’  And the last three years I’ve been developing ‘The Love Guru.’ And now, it’s at Paramount and I’m shooting in August.  And after that there is a slot and I’ll probably do the Keith Moon movie.  That’s also been in development at that time.  You see, when you write stuff…I didn’t write Keith Moon, that’s Donald Margulies, a Pulitzer prize winning playwright. He wrote an amazing, brilliant script. But, he invited me into the process, like, ‘What did you think? What did you think?’ And I’m like, ‘Great.’ ‘The Love Guru’ -- the average movie takes 60 months from the first kind of ‘Hmm, could this be a movie on the screen?’ to it being on the screen. I tend to take about 36 months. But, I am there all 36 months.

Q: Can you tell us about the character?

MM: Yes, he is a Canadian who is raised in India, becomes a guru and helps the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup.  (Laughs.) Yeah, I feel like I did hog, did you want to ask?

Q: I just wanted to know if you had a favorite of the ‘Shrek’s’?

MM: This one. It has incorporated two and three and the wonderful Antonio Banderas.

Q: Antonio, are you doing ‘Sin City 2’?

AB: In every roundtable they ask me that, but I didn’t receive a call from Robert. Knowing Robert he’d give me a call the night before.”

(Lot’s of cross talk so getting an accurate word transcription is impossible – I suggest listening to the audio)

Question: Mike are you going to try and get the Toronto Maple Leaf players and the real Stanley Cup for the movie?

MM: Yup. I’m so excited, I can’t even tell you.

Q: Where would you take it if you had the cup?

MM: Where would I take it?  They are so propitious of the cup; they probably wouldn’t let me near it. But, I’d it to Lake Ontario and swim with it.