Fans of John Candy are very happy these days. Not only do we have the new Ryan Reynolds produced documentary film John Candy: I Like Me, available with an Amazon Prime Video subscription, but there’s also a new biography of the iconic comedian called John Candy: A Life in Comedy, written by Paul Myers, the brother of comedian Mike Myers. It turns out the latter has a very personal connection to the man.
In an appearance on Canada’s The Morning Show, Paul Myers relayed the story about his brother, a teenage Mike Myers, seeing John Candy in person and asking for advice on how to break into comedy. While many actors might give vague advice or speak in broad concepts, Candy remarkably gave Myers specifics that would help the kid eventually become a star. Myers explained…
[Mike] goes to see a live performance, a public appearance, of John Candy. [He] waits at the stage door. Mike wanted to get into comedy. He’s like 16, and he says ‘Excuse me, Mr. Candy, how do I get into comedy?’ And anyone could have answered that question any different way. Like some people could be really bad about it. But John gave him this advice ‘Go to Second City. They have workshops. Learn about comedy. If you like it, you’ll stay with it. If you’re not into it, you’ll find out early and do something else with your life. And if you love it, you might still not make it, but you could be working at something you love, and that’s great.’
This is pretty fantastic, and clearly well-thought-out advice from Candy. It just goes to show that not all advice works well for everybody. Harrison Ford recently commented about advice, saying that trying to imitate success stories doesn’t work. Here John Candy is advocating that Myers do exactly what many others before him had done.
The key, however, isn’t that this was a way to become a star. Candy’s focus encouraged Mike Myers to pursue comedy if he ended up loving it. If you love what you’re doing, that’s certainly better than doing a job you hate. As Paul Myers says…
That’s great advice to give anyone about any career. Right?
For the record, Mike Myers would join Second City’s Canadian touring company after high school, before moving on to the company’s main stage in Chicago. During the years he was with Second City, he would begin to create characters like Wayne Campbell who would help make him a star when he later joined Saturday Night Live.
Paul Myers said years later, John Candy saw Mike Myers in a restaurant and stopped to tell him how much he loved the then-new Wayne’s World movie. It’s unclear if Candy realized it was the same kid he once gave advice to that changed his life.