Fiona

**Fiona** is the tritagonist in DreamWorks' animated Shrek film series. She made her first appearance in the first film in the franchise, Shrek (2001), voiced by American actress Cameron Diaz.

In the first film, Fiona appears as a princess plagued by a curse that transforms her into an ogress each and every sunset. Locked in a dragon-guarded castle for several years until she is "rescued" by irreverent ogre named Shrek, whom she mistakes for a knight, Fiona is at first eager to have her spell broken via true love's kiss by Lord Farquaad so that they remain human, but later she comes to love Shrek.

## Background

### Personality

Princess Fiona is initially portrayed as the archetypal princess from fairy tales, speaking formally in matters of courtship and presenting high expectations of how she is to be rescued, who is to rescue her, and so forth. She seems to give off an air of prissiness and even snobbery to a degree (however this is shown to be purely out of her concern for breaking her curse, of which she is ashamed). Later, Princess Fiona's true self-emerges, as she is really a very down-to-earth and independent woman who is a match or even better than Shrek when it comes to farting, belching, and other bad habits. She is a loyal friend, and unlike princesses of fairy tales, an expert in hand-to-hand combat with knowledge of martial arts. She also has very bad manners (just like Shrek), since she is an ogre. However, she is much more well-mannered when in front of her parents.

Fiona has special talents as well. For example, besides her martial arts skills, she is able to sing so high that birds explode. Fiona is much more patient and kinder to Donkey than Shrek is at times. She is shown to be a very loving wife and mother. However, in Shrek Forever After, her alternate self is shown to be aggressive, single-minded and driven at times. This is understandable, given the situation she is in.

This "new" Fiona is shown to have arrived at this point after being disillusioned because Shrek never came to rescue her. Bitter and angry, she is shown to still be passionate and fiery but not as gentle and sweet as she was in the other movies, however, these traits have not completely faded.

Fiona is extremely insightful, and she also has the skill of rallying other people, shown in Shrek 3 when her speech rallies the princesses to break out of the dungeons.

### Physical Appearance

Early storyboards of an alternate opening shows that she was originally born an ogress to her human parents who were the rulers of Duloc. They had her locked in the tower under the lie that she was "of such rare beauty" she was kidnapped. They died, and the kingdom was under the rule of "an ambitious regent" - hinted to be Farquaad. When she 'became of age' to ascend the throne she escaped the tower and encounters a witch named Bib Fortuna (a reference to the *Star Wars* character of the same name) - who has narrated the entire sequence through her tarot cards.

She gave Fiona a potion which would make her beautiful; however, the potion has no effect. But Fortuna warns her the potion has a side effect - she will change between her human and ogress form until she finds her true love. Later she was whisked away by her dragon guardian and returned to the tower.

A person planned to voice her in *Shrek* was Janeane Garofalo, who was set to star alongside Chris Farley. However, she was fired from the project with little explanation. In June 2007, Garofalo stated: "I was never told why [I was fired]. I assume because I sound like a man sometimes? I don't know why. Nobody told me ... But, you know, the movie didn't do anything, so who cares?". Princess Fiona also performed the naming ceremony for Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas on November 28, 2010.