Voicing Shrek - A Look at the Shrek Voice Talent A Look at the Voices in DreamWorks' animated Shrek movie. Voicing Shrek by Joe Tracy, Publisher of Digital Media FX (digitalmediafx.com) Large scale animated productions, like Shrek, depend on Hollywood celebrities to bring animated character voices to life. While having celebrities attached to an animated film is a major blow to voice actors, it provides major marketing potential for studios. Celebrities starring in DreamWorks' Shrek include Mike Meyers as Shrek, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona, and John Lithgow as Lord Farquaad. The main star, of course, is Shrek - a disgusting ogre who reacts to his swamp home being invaded by fairy tale characters. As the star, it was important for the voice artist to bring out the disgusting habits of Shrek while still making him lovable. "Shrek is no dreamboat, but Mike understood the heart and soul of the character and brought out his wonderful lovable qualities," says DreamWorks principle Jeffrey Katzenberg.

In the way he brought Shrek's words to life, Mike gave him his heart and we were able to mold our physical character around his voice." Sometimes voicing a character creates opportunities to improvise, which brings more life to the character. "We spent a lot of time in the studio discovering who Mike Myers as Shrek was, and experimenting with different voices and different accents," says Andrew Adamson, one of the films two directors. "The truth is, when you cast Mike Myers in a role, you don't just get Mike Myers; you get the plethora of characterizations he can create. He is the best at inventing a character and stepping into it. And once he's in it, he stays in it - even between takes - which gave him a great base from which to start improvising. The improv moments are gold; those are the moments that give the animators the most to go on, because at that point, it's not a written piece of dialogue - it's a character come to life." Playing Shrek's "sidekick" is a donkey named Donkey. For the voice, the Shrek team selected Eddie Murphy.

Murphy's last experience as a voice over artist came in Disney's Mulan where he played Mulan's sidekick, Mushu the Dragon. Murphy freely admits that there are big differences between voice acting and live action acting. "Animation is a much more collaborative process than acting with my body and my face," says Murphy. "It's a trip to have the director ask for a small inflection in your voice, and then, when the scene is drawn, you see how that slight change brings out the emotion. Another reason I like doing animated films is that, when they're done right, they're timeless, and my kids really get into them They love hearing their father's voice come out of a cartoon." Playing the role of the princess - who is unlike any past animated fairy tale princess - is actress Cameron Diaz. She describes the princess as "a little spark plug." What makes Shrek different for Diaz is that it is her first ever voicing of an animated character. She had no idea of what to expect. "They told me that Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy were in most of my scenes, so I expected to walk into the room and find them both there and do lines together," says Diaz.

"Instead, I got storyboards and a pointer stick running across dialogue on the bottom. I thought, 'Okay, this is different,' but it turned out to be very cool." One of Diaz's sequences in the movie includes a fight scene that mimics some moves from The Matrix. Diaz was psyched about that part of the movie because she was doing intense daily martial arts training for Charlie's Angels. "She would come in all pumped up from training and suddenly break into fighting noises and threaten to take one of the story artists out - in Chinese no less," laughs Adamson. So, if all the main characters are voiced by Hollywood celebrities then you'd expect voice artists to get the minor roles, right? Well not quite. When storyboard artists and other crew pitch an idea to the directors, they act out the characters in the sequence, including character dialogue. The Shrek filmmakers were so impressed with some of these performances that they cast some of their crew as animated character voices. This includes story artist Conrad Vernon as the Gingerbread Man, Chris Miller as Geppetto (and as the Magic Mirror), Cody Cameron as Pinocchio (and one of the three little pigs), and Christopher Knights as one of the three blind mice.

A few real life voice artists did make their way into Shrek. One well-known voice artist, Jim Cummings, was cast as the Captain of the Guards. Cummings has voiced over 100 animated characters in his lifetime. This includes voicing Tigger and Winnie the Pooh in last year's Disney animated film, The Tigger Movie. Here is a complete list of the voice cast for Shrek: Shrek Farquaad | Dreamworks Animation Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Farquaad is the main antagonist from the 2001 animated feature Shrek . He is voiced by John Lithgow . Like most characters, he does not appear in William Steig 's picture book of the same name. Contents [ show ] Personality Farquaad is the villainous impatient, menacing, ruthless, greedy, cruel, rude, evil, (literally), mean, furious, barbaric, loathsome, scandalous, materialistic, short-tempered, egotistical, and iron-fisted ruler of DuLoc. He is an extremely selfish, arrogant, conceited, oppressive, and power-hungry dictator who doesn't care about anyone but himself.

However, despite his villainy, Farquaad didn't see himself as a monster and when this was brought up to him by Gingy, he instantly dismissed it and even went as far to call him and the rest of fairytale creatures which makes him completely xenophobic, contemptuous, and individualistic. Farquaad also suffered from a Napoleon Complex and felt the need to overcompensate for his comical stature by being domineering and controlling. Other examples of this is the towering height of castle DuLoc and in his grave when Farquaad was taller than the dragon that killed him. Farquaad is a heartless perfectionist whom saw that everything had to be done his way and the only way for DuLoc to become perfect was to exile all fairy tale creatures. Farquaad's one and only dream was to become the official ruler of DuLoc. However to do this he needed a princess so the only reason he decided to wed Fiona was out of pure lust for power and not any love in his heart. Farquaad is also very sadistic and manipulative, as evidenced while he was torturing Gingy by severing his legs and taunting him further by repeating the line "Run, run as fast as you can.

You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man.". Although in the first film where he was disgusted by Fiona's ogress appearance, he may have actually developed real feelings for her he may have developed genuine feeling for her after his death he wanted her to become his undead queen so he could rule the underworld. He was also lazy as evidenced by him not wanting to rescue the princess himself so he arranged a tournament of Knights to battle for the honor. To be fair, he is incredibly short in stature, so he was likely unable to do so. Farquaad was quite rude and had a bullying streak which shows as he calls both Fiona and Shrek hideous at the sight of their appearance and described them both as "it". Farquaad's overall attraction towards the princess may have been solely lust and even if they did wed there was no guarantee that he would treat her right. in the Shrek Films Shrek Lord Farquaad is the comically short-in-stature, ruthless ruler of Duloc. Several times in the film it is commented that, in his capital city Duloc's towering height, Farquaad may be compensating for something. His birthday is April 15.

In pursuit of perfection, Farquaad attempts to rid his kingdom of Fairy Tale creatures, offering a bounty for their capture and then exiling imprisoned creatures to Shrek 's swamp. However, because Farquaad is not of royal stock, he cannot become a king until he marries a princess. He decides that Princess Fiona will be the perfect wife and queen, but she first must be rescued from her tower which is guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. Too lazy or perhaps unable to perform the rescue himself, Farquaad holds a tournament to discover the knight who will rescue Princess Fiona. Shrek and Donkey arrive at Duloc during the tourney and become involved, but Farquaad wants them (mainly Shrek) killed in the contest. They defeat the knights, so Farquaad decides to send Shrek on the quest. Farquaad agrees to move the Fairy Tale creatures out of Shrek's swamp if he rescues Fiona, although it's safe to assume he was gonna put them somewhere worse than the swamp.

A couple of days later, Shrek brings Farquaad to Fiona and Farquaad acts like an ungrateful jerk and rudley hands him the deed to his swamp and doesn't even thank Shrek or Donkey for bringing her to him. He introduces himself to Fiona and tells her not to waste good manners on Shrek, because he thinks "it" doesn't have feelings. Fiona, since she's angry at Shrek for not letting her explain anything, accepts Faruqaad's proposal and they leave to be married at sunset. When Shrek reconciles with Donkeys, he disrupts the marriage ceremony, delaying a kiss between Farquaad and Fiona until after sunset. Fiona makes the transition from human to ogress form, upon which Farquaad rejects his new bride, banishing her back to the tower and claiming the title of King. He also sentences Shrek to death at that time. Before Farquaad finishes his claim of becoming the new King, the dragon who had guarded Fiona, and who developed a crush on Donkey while Fiona was being rescued from her castle, crashes through the window in response to a beckoning whistle from Shrek. She then devours Farquaad.

Moments later the dragon burps and Farquaad's crown comes out. Farquaad was clearly hated in Duloc; when he is eaten, the citizens and guards laugh and cheer. Farquaad also appears in the short musical film Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party! , which takes place just before Shrek and Fiona leave on their honeymoon. He is shown singing Stayin' Alive inside Dragon's stomach. Despite being alive in Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party, Farquaad is implied to be killed and enters as a ghost in the Shrek 4-D ride at Universal Studios. He also appears as a ghost in the 30 min Shrek Special on Nick in which he attempts to murderer Shrek and Donkey, and kidnap and kill Fiona so that she can be his ghost queen. Princess Fiona is rescued when Lord Farquaad is presumably destroyed by the Dragon again. He was originally intended to appear in the alternate universe (in which he would still be alive due to Dragon not eating him), but the decision was apparently dropped. Lord Farquaad also makes a cameo during the ending credits of Shrek Forever After.

Scared Shrekless Despite being eaten by Dragon in the first film, Lord Farquaad plays a major role in the made-for-TV special Scared Shrekless . Shrek challenges his friends to spend Halloween night in Farquaad's haunted castle, Duloc. The three little pigs note that Duloc was where Farquaad lived and died. Later on, Shrek also mentions how Donkey played a role in the death of Farquaad. In theatre In the original Broadway production of Shrek the Musical , the role was played by Tony Award nominee Christopher Sieber . Since Sieber is 6'2", he played the role in his knees, to give the illusion that he is 4'2". He did, however, walk and stand for the curtain call. He earned his second Tony nomination for this part. Though the film and musical are similar in many ways, Farquaad in the musical is more flamboyant and fun-loving, less subtle, and even more conceited. Instead of holding a tournament, a raffle drawing is held to pick the knight to rescue Fiona with a extravagant song and dance number starring Farquaad and the Duloc Dancers called " What's Up Duloc ".

In one Broadway parody moment in the show, he ascends a tower at the end and imitates the end of Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked. The inspiration debate There is some speculation that Lord Farquaad's appearance may be inspired by Michael Eisner, the then-CEO of The Walt Disney Company, owing to producer Jeffrey Katzenberg 's animosity toward his former employer. Others had noticed a resemblance to Richard III of England. The name Farquaad is thought to be a way to get away with saying "fuckwad" in a children's film. Farquaad happens to be similar to the surname of film animator Mark Farquhar. Some think Farquaad was based on the 7th US President, Andrew Jackson, as he forced a group from their land (Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830). Reception IGN's Orlando Parfitt chose Lord Farquaad as his 14th favorite fantasy villain. Trivia Farquaad marks the first main villain in the Shrek franchise . In one scene where Farquaad lies in bed, the coat of Mother Bear from "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is seen on his floor, hinting that he may have killed her.

This makes him one of the two Shrek villains to actually kill someone, the other being Rumpelstiltskin when he "killed" King Harold and Queen Lillian in Shrek Forever After . Despite rejecting Fiona after seeing her in her ogress form, Farquaad wanted her to make her his ghostly queen in the underworld. He also seemed to still have feelings for her. In the intro when he was torturing Gingy, the three little pigs, and Pinocchio, he called her "His" Fiona in an affectionate way. He also was flirting with her while she was on the raft. When he thought she was dead, he called her his angel.

By making Shrek rescue Fiona, he made himself an enemy of all three of his successors, as for all three their plans (getting Fiona to marry Charming for Fairy Godmother, marrying Fiona for Prince Charming, and getting Harold and Lillian to sign their entire kingdom away in exchange for lifting Fiona's curse for Rumpelstiltskin) could only be ruined by somebody else than Charming (Shrek did this) saving Fiona, as Fiona would instead be supposed to marry Farquaad (though she married Shrek), ruining the Godmother and Charming's plans to have her marry him, and, with Fiona saved, Rumpelstiltskin's help was no longer needed as Fiona had been saved (though Harold and Lillian believed her saver was human, and that he kissed her after slaying the Dragon, which wasn't the case, as Shrek was an ogre, he was supposed to bring her to Farquaad, and he didn't slay the Dragon, which actually turned to his advantage when he needed to gain Fiona's true love) Despite being eaten by the Dragon, it is possible that Lord Farquaad wasn't actually killed, considering the fact that he'd been seen alive in Shrek in the Swamp

 Karaoke Dance Party.

If this is true, he propably died shortly after, from starvation or suffocation. He may also be based on Napoleon Bonaparte due to being short yet ruling with an iron fist. Late actor Alan Rickman was originally offered for the role of Lord Farquaad, but he turned it down to play Severus Snape in Harry Potter instead. He is the most popular DreamWorks villains. Similarities with other characters Gaston from the 1991 Disney film "Beauty and the Beast" shares a striking resemblance to Farquaad as both: Both are main antagonists who weren't revealed to be evil at first. Both wear red costume. Their both hair is black, ironically Gaston tied his hair, whilst Farquaad didn't tie his hair. Both wanted to marry to heroine (Princess Fiona and Belle) for their selfish reasons. Both have been called "monster" by who (Gingy and Belle) disliked themselves. Both attempt to kill hideous creature (Shrek and Beast). Both fought with hideous creature in the castle.

King Candy from the 2012 Disney film Wreck-It Ralph shares a striking ressemblance to Farquaad as both: Are approached by the protagonist for something (in Shrek's case, his swamp, and Ralph's case, his medal). Have accepted to give this to the protagonist in exchange for something regarding a princess Protagonists have regretted their actions for them (though in Shrek's case, he didn't regret saving Fiona, but misunderstood Fiona and Donkey's conversation and believed Fiona thought he was a hideous beast, leaving him heartbroken, while Wreck-It Ralph regretted destroying Vanellope's cart because he realized King Candy had lied to him) Are Complete Monsters. Protagonists have come back for the Princess in question Have been killed during an attempt to kill the protagonist Have been killed by something triggered by the protagonist (Shrek's triggered whistle was the signal for Dragon to burst in and eat Farquaad; Wreck-It Ralph triggered the eruption that enchanted all Cy-Bugs including Turbo).

Prince Charming (ironically the main antagonist of Shrek The Third and one of Farquaad's successors) shares similarities to Farquaad, as both: Want to marry Princess Fiona in order to become king (although this was Charming's goal in Shrek 2 and by Shrek The Third came, he'd lost interest in her) Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda shares similarities to Farquaad, as (both): Have hated the main protagonist from the moment they met them. Despite this, both were after another protagonist (Princess Fiona in Farquaad's case; Shifu in Tai Lung's case). However, Farquaad wanted to marry Fiona, whilst Tai Lung intended to kill Shifu. On another hand, Farquaad only wanted to marry Fiona in order to become king, which would mean he indirectly gave her a bad "happily ever after". The main protagonists both came back for the protagonist. Also, netiher actually had a clear idea of why they'd come back. On both occasions, this comeback from the protagonist ultimately led to their downfalls. On both occasions, the main protagonist fought the antagonist in order to get what they wanted.

(However, Shrek didn't actually mentally fight Farquaad; and defeating Tai Lung wasn't really what Po wanted.) Hal Stewart from Megamind shares similarities with Farquaad, as (both): Were in love with the female lead. The main protagonist were in love with the female lead. They clashed with the mainprotagonist for this, along with other reasons. They hated the main protagonist before personally knowing them, they briefly got along with them, before resuming their clash with them, which would eventually lead to their downfall. They were given something (or someone) by the main protagonist (Fiona in Farquaad's case ; Metroman's DNA in Hal Stewart's case) which the main protagonist later retook. They tried to kill the main protagonist, an attempt which would backfire on them and lead to their downfalls. These attempts to kill the main protagonist regarded the female lead (Farquaad's fit of rage was caused by Fiona's transformation ; Hal Stewart's hate of Megamind was based on the fact that Roxanne Ritchi spurned him for Megamind.

King Julien XIII from the Madagascar franchise shares similarites to Farquaad, despite being a protagonist in his series, as (both) : Their power is self-proclaimed Didn't like the protagonist at first Decreed an order against the protagonist; banishment in King Julien XIII's case, death sentence in Lord Farquaad's case. Want to be respected by all Have gone back for a person they'd banished; Farquaad wanted Fiona to be his ghost queen, Julien lifted Alex's banishment, even coming with him and the other zoo animals in their quest to get back to New York. Lord Victor Quartermaine from Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit shares a lot of similarities to Farquaad, as (both): Are lords Hate the protagonist for what they are (ogres in Shrek's case, a fairytale creature in Donkey's case for Farquaad ; pest control in Wallace and Gromit's case for Quartermaine) Want to marry the female lead in order to get what they want out of them (being king in Farquaad's case, getting her money in Quartermaine's case) One of the three main characters in their movie is cursed.

The main protagonist's sidekick discovered this curse (or in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit , discovered who was cursed) first, with the other of the three main protagonists and the antagonist discovering this shortly after. This curse would be broken shortly after their defeat. Their movie would receive an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Their defeats were majorly played by the protagonist's sidekick, more than the protagonist himself. The first feature featuring the main protagonist, but not the female lead or the antagonist, was released in 1990. RJ from Over the Hedge shares similarities with Farquaad, despite being the main protagonist of his feature. Both have used people, at the expense of them and another person. Both were formerly friends with their opposites in their movie (Shrek in Farquaad's case, Vincent in RJ's case) Both were threatened by their opposites in their movie. His forced removal of fairy tale characters correlates with Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Long Walk of the Navajo in 1863-1868. Gallery DreamWorks Wiki has a collection of images and media related to Farquaad . Quotes "Evening.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, is this not the most perfect kingdom of them all?" "Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make" "I'm not the monster here, you are. You and the rest of that fairy tale trash, poisoning my perfect world. Now tell me, where are the others" "I am king, I will have orders, I will have perfection, I will have... (his last words.) "And as for you, my wife, I'll have you locked away in that tower for the rest of your days!" Shrek (film) | Dreamworks Animation Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Budget $60 million Shrek is the a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy-comedy film produced by PDI / DreamWorks , released by DreamWorks Pictures , directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson , featuring the voices of Mike Myers , Eddie Murphy , Cameron Diaz , and John Lithgow . It is loosely based on William Steig 's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!, and somewhat serves as a parody film, targeting other films adapted from numerous children's fantasies (mainly animated Disney films).

The film made notable use of popular music; the soundtrack includes music by Smash Mouth , Eels, Joan Jett, The Proclaimers, Jason Wade, Baha Men, and John Cale (covering Leonard Cohen). The rights to the books were originally bought by Steven Spielberg in 1991, before the founding of DreamWorks , when he thought about making a traditionally animated film based on the book. However, John H. Williams convinced him to bring the film to DreamWorks in 1994, the time the studio was founded, and the film was put quickly into active development by Jeffrey Katzenberg after the rights were bought by the studio in 1995. Shrek originally cast Chris Farley to do the voice for the title character, recording about 80%-90% of his dialog. After Farley died in 1997 before he could finish, Mike Myers was brought in to work for the character, who after his first recording decide to record his voice in a Scottish accent. The film was also originally planned to be motion-captured, but after poor results, the studio decided to get PDI to help Shrek get its final computer-animated look.

Earning $484.4 million at the worldwide box office, the film was a critical and commercial success. Shrek also received promotion from food chains such as Baskin-Robbins (promoting the film's DVD release) and Burger King. It was acclaimed as an animated film worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented jokes and themes but a simple enough plot and humor to appeal to children. Shrek won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was also nominated for six British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, including the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film's main (and title) character was awarded his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2010. Shrek established DreamWorks Animation as a prime competitor to Pixar in the field of feature film animation, particularly in computer animation. The film's success prompted DreamWorks to create three sequels, Shrek 2 , Shrek the Third , and Shrek Forever After , two holiday specials, Shrek the Halls and Scared Shrekless , and a spin-off film, Puss in Boots .

A fifth film , planned as the last of the series, was cancelled in 2009 with the announcement that the fourth film would conclude the series. The film's success also inspired other merchandise, such as video games, a stage musical and even a comic book by Dark Horse Comics. Contents [ show ] Plot Shrek is a green ogre that has always enjoyed living in peaceful solitude in his swamp, finds his life disrupted when numerous fairytale beings, including Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, and Donkey, are forced into the swamp by order of the obsessive and fairytale-hating Lord Farquaad . Shrek leaves the swamp to ask Lord Farquaad for the return of his privacy, with Donkey tagging along. Meanwhile, Farquaad tortures the Gingerbread Man into revealing the whereabouts of the remaining fairytale creatures until his guards rush in with an object Farquaad has been searching for: the Magic Mirror. The Mirror tells him that Farquaad can only become a real king by marrying a princess. The Mirror gives him three princesses to choose from including Cinderella, Snow White, and Princess Fiona.

Farquaad chooses Fiona and silences the Mirror before he can mention "the little thing that happens at night". Shrek and Donkey arrive at Lord Farquaad's palace in Duloc, where they find themselves in the midst of a tournament; the winner will have the "privilege" of attempting to rescue Fiona from a castle surrounded by lava and protected by a fire-breathing dragon so that Lord Farquaad may marry her. Shrek (with some help from Donkey) easily beats the other knights in a fashion that resembles a wrestling match and Farquaad agrees to remove the fairytale creatures from the swamp if Shrek rescues Fiona. Shrek and Donkey travel to the castle and split up to find Fiona. Donkey encounters the dragon and sweet-talks the beast to save himself before discovering that the dragon is female. Dragon takes a liking to Donkey and carries him to her chambers. When Shrek finds Fiona, she is appalled at his lack of romanticism. As they are leaving, Shrek manages to save Donkey, caught in Dragon's tender clutches, and causing her to become irate, chasing Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey out of the castle.

At first, Fiona is thrilled to be rescued but quickly becomes disappointed when she finds out that Shrek is an ogre. The three make their return journey to Farquaad's palace, with Shrek and Fiona finding they have more in common with each other along the way, and falling in love. However, at night, Fiona refuses to camp with them, taking shelter in a nearby cave until morning. Shrek and Donkey stay awake and watch the stars while Shrek informs Donkey that he plans to build a wall around his swamp when he returns. When Donkey persists as to why Shrek would do this, Shrek tells him that everyone judges him before they know him, therefore he is better off alone. The next night, Fiona takes shelter in a nearby windmill. When Donkey hears strange noises coming from the windmill, he finds Fiona has turned into an ogre. Fiona explains she was cursed as a child and turns into an ogre every night, which is why she was locked away in the castle, and that only a kiss from her true love will return her to her proper form.

Shrek, about to confess his feelings for Fiona, overhears part of their conversation, and is heartbroken as he misinterprets her disgust at her transformation into an "ugly beast" as being disgusted with him. Fiona makes Donkey promise not to tell Shrek about the spell, vowing to do it herself, but when the next morning comes, Shrek has brought Lord Farquaad to Fiona. The two return to the castle, while a hurt Shrek returns to the now-vacated swamp. Shrek finds that despite his privacy, he is miserable and misses Fiona. Donkey shows up and tries to convince Shrek to go back for Fiona, but Shrek tells him that he heard Fiona say that he was a hideous beast. Donkey tells Fiona wasn't referring to him and tells Shrek that she will be getting married shortly, urging Shrek into action to gain Fiona's true love. They are able to travel to Duloc quickly thanks to Dragon, who had escaped her confines and followed Donkey. They interrupt the wedding before Farquaad can kiss Fiona, but not before the sun sets, which causes Fiona to turn into an ogre in front of everyone.

While her transformation causes Shrek to fully understand what he overheard at the windmill, Farquaad, disgusted over the change, orders Shrek killed and Fiona imprisoned, but Dragon bursts in and devours Farquaad. Shrek and Fiona admit their love for each other and share a kiss; Fiona is bathed in light as her curse is broken, but is surprised to find that she has remained an ogre. Shrek calms her by assuring her that she is still beautiful. The two of them get married in the swamp and depart on their honeymoon while the rest celebrate by singing "I'm a Believer". Cast Elisa Gabrielli as Additional Voices Production Development “Every development deal starts with a pitch and my pitch came from my then kindergartener, in collaboration with his pre-school brother. Upon our second reading of Shrek, the kindergartener started quoting large segments of the book pretending he could read them. Even as an adult, I thought Shrek was outrageous, irreverent, inconolastic, gross, and just a lot of fun. He was a great movie character in search of a movie.” ―John H.

Williams, recounting the inspiration of making the film [src] At the time DreamWorks was founded, producer John H. Williams got hold of the book from his children, and when he brought it to DreamWorks , it caught Jeffrey Katzenberg 's attention and the studio decided to make it into a movie. After buying the rights to the film, Katzenberg quickly put the film in active development. Steven Spielberg had thought about making a traditionally animated film of the book before, when he brought the rights to the book in 1991, before the founding of DreamWorks , where Bill Murray will play Shrek and Steve Martin would play Donkey. In the beginning of production, co-director Andrew Adamson refused to be intimidated by Katzenberg, and had an argument with how much should the film appeal to adults. Katzenberg wanted both audiences, but he found some of Adamson's ideas about adding sexual jokes and Guns N' Roses music to the soundtrack a bit too outrageous. Andrew Adamson and Kelly Asbury joined in 1997 to co-direct the film.

However, Asbury left a year for work on the 2002 film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron , and was replaced with story artist Vicky Jenson . Both Adamson and Jenson decided to work on the film in half, so the crew could at least know who to go with specific detail questions about the film's sequences: "We both ended up doing a lot of everything", Adamson said. "We're both kinda control freaks, and we both wanted to do everything." Some early sketches of Shrek's house were done in 1996 through 1997 using Photoshop, with the sketches showing Shrek first living in a garbage dump near a human village called Wart Creek. It was also one time that he lived with his parents and kept rotten fish in his bedroom. Donkey was modeled after Pericles (born 1994; also known as Perry), a real miniature donkey from Barron Park, Palo Alto, California.

Raman Hui , the supervising animator of Shrek, stated that Fiona "wasn't based on any real person." and he did many different sketches for Princess Fiona and had done over 100 sculptures of Fiona before the directors picked the final design. In early development, the Art Directors visited Hearst Castle, Stratford upon Avon and Dordogne for inspiration. Art Director Douglas Rogers visited a magnolia plantation in Charleston, South Carolina for inspiration for Shrek's swamp. Planned characters not used in the film include Goldilocks and Sleeping Beauty . Casting Nicolas Cage was initially offered the role of Shrek but he turned it down because he did not want to look like an ugly ogre.

In 2013, Cage admitted that he regrets the decision, and explained: "When you're drawn, in a way it says more about how children are going to see you than anything else, and I so care about that." Mike Myers was re-cast as Shrek after Chris Farley 's death Chris Farley was originally planned to do the voice of Shrek which he recorded 80 to 90% (or 95% according to Farley's brother Tom) of the dialogue for the character, but died before completing the project. A story reel featuring a sample of Farley's recorded dialogue was leaked to the public in August 2015. DreamWorks then re-cast the voice role to Mike Myers , who insisted on a complete script rewrite, to leave no traces of Farley's version of Shrek.

According to Myers, he wanted to voice the character "for two reasons: I wanted the opportunity to work with Jeffrey Katzenberg; and [the book is] a great story about accepting yourself for who you are." After Myers had completed providing the voice for the character, when the film was well into production, he asked to re-record all of his lines in a Scottish accent similar to the one his mother had used when she told him bedtime stories and also used for his roles in other films such as, So I Married an Axe Murderer and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. According to the DVD commentary, he had also tried using country and Canadian accents. After hearing the alternative, Katzenberg agreed to redo scenes in the film, saying "it didn't cost the studio "millions of dollars," as rumored. "What it meant is instead of me going in for ten sessions, I went in for twenty sessions. I got paid the same." Because of Myers voicing the character, more ideas began to come. There were clearer story points, fresher gags and comedy bits.

Myers said "I got a letter from Spielberg thanking me so much for caring about the character ...And he said the Scottish accent had improved the movie." Another person planned to voice a character in the film was Janeane Garofalo, who was set to star alongside Farley as Princess Fiona. However, she was fired from the project with little explanation. Years later, 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?" Animation Shrek was originally set up to be a live-action/CG animated hybrid with background plate miniature sets and the main characters composited into the scene as motion-captured computer graphics, using an ExpertVision Hires Falcon 10 camera system to capture and apply realistic human movement to the characters. A sizeable crew was hired to run a test, and after a year and a half of R & D, the test was finally screened in May 1997.

The results were not satisfactory, with Katzenberg stating, "It looked terrible, it didn't work, it wasn't funny, and we didn't like it." The studio then turned to its production partners at PDI , who began production with the studio in 1998 and helped Shrek get its final, computer-animated look. At this time Antz was still in production by the studio and Effects Supervisor Ken Bielenberg was asked by Aron Warner "to start development for Shrek." Similar to previous PDI films, PDI used its own proprietary software (like its own Fluid Animation System) for its animated movies. However, for some elements it also took advantage of some of the powerhouse animation software that was in the market. This is particularly true with Maya, which PDI used for most of its dynamic cloth animation and for the hair of Fiona and Farquaad. "We did a lot of work on character and set-up, and then kept changing the set up while we were doing the animation," Hui noted "In Antz , we had a facial system that gave us all of the facial muscles under the skin. In Shrek, we applied that to the whole body.

So if you pay attention to Shrek when he talks, you see that when he opens his jaw, he forms a double chin, because we have the fat and the muscles underneath. That kind of detail took us a long time to get right." One of the most difficult parts of creating the film was making Donkey's fur flow smoothly so that it didn't look like a Chia Pet's fur. This fell into the hands of the surfacing animators who used flow controls with a complex shader to provide the fur with many attributes (ability to change directions, lie flat, swirl, etc.). It was then the job of the visual effects group, lead by Ken Bielenberg, to make the fur react to environmental conditions. Once the technology was mastered, it was able to be applied by many aspects of the Shrek movie including grass, moss, beards, eyebrows, and even threads on Shrek's tunic. Making human hair realistic was different from Donkey's fur, requiring a separate rendering system and a lot of attention from the lighting and visual effects teams. Shrek has 31 sequences, with 1,288 shots in every sequence total.

Aron Warner said that the creators "envisioned a magical environment that you can immerse yourself into." Shrek includes 38 separate in-film locations to make the world of the film, which DreamWorks claimed was more than any previous computer animated feature before. In-film locations were finalized and as demonstrated by past DreamWorks animated movies, color and mood was of the utmost importance. Music Shrek is the third DreamWorks animated film (and the only film in the Shrek series ) to have Harry Gregson-Williams team up with John Powell to compose the score (after Antz (1998) and Chicken Run (2000)). John Powell was left out to compose scores for later Shrek films with Williams due to a conflict. The score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios by Nick Wollage and Slamm Andrews , with the latter mixing it at Media Ventures and Patrick Sullivan-Fourstar handling mastering. Shrek introduced a new element to give the film a unique feel. The film used pop music and other Oldies to make the story more forward. Covers of songs like " On the Road Again " and " Try a Little Tenderness " we're integrated into the film's score.

As the film was about to be completed, Katzenberg suggested to the filmmakers to redo the film's ending to "go out with a big laugh"; Instead of ending the film with just a storybook closing over Shrek and Fiona as they ride off into the sunset, they decided to add a song "I'm a Believer" covered by Smash Mouth and show all of the fairytale creatures in the film. Although Rufus Wainwright 's version of the song "Hallelujah" appeared on the soundtrack album, it was John Cale 's version that appeared in the film; in a radio interview, Rufus Wainwright suggested that his version of "Hallelujah" did not appear in the film due to the "glass ceiling" he was hitting because of his sexuality. An alternate explanation posits that because Wainwright was an artist for DreamWorks and John Cale was not, thus licensing issues prohibited Cale's version from appearing in the soundtrack album, despite having the filmmakers wanting to have Cale's version appear in the film. Cultural references In many places the film references classic movies, predominantly those by Disney.

When Tinker Bell falls on Donkey and says "I can fly" and people around including the three little pigs say "He can fly, he can fly"; this is a reference to Disney's Peter Pan. This scene is also a reference to the Disney film Dumbo, while Donkey says, while flying "You might have seen a house fly, maybe even a super fly, but I bet you ain't never seen a Donkey fly" The scene where Fiona is singing to the blue bird is a reference to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The transformation scene at the end of the film strongly references to Disney's Beauty and the Beast. When Shrek crosses the bridge to the Castle and says, "That'll do, Donkey, that'll do," this is a reference to the movie Babe. The scene where Princess Fiona is fighting the Merry Men is a lengthy reference to the film The Matrix, which was released before the film in 1999. At the end of the film, the Gingerbread Man at the end with a crutch (and one leg) says "God bless us, everyone" which is a reference to Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol.

In the scene where the Magic Mirror gives Lord Farquaad the option to marry three princesses, it parodies popular American television show The Dating Game featuring: Cinderella and Snow White . In addition, Lord Farquaad's theme park style kingdom Duloc heavily mimics Disneyland, even in so far as parodying the famous 'It's A Small World Afterall' musical ride in the scene with the singing puppets. Release Marketing In 2000, IMAX released CyberWorld onto its branded large-screen theaters. It was a compilation film that featured stereoscopic conversions of various animated shorts and sequences, including the bar sequence in Antz . DreamWorks was so impressed by the technology used for the sequence's "stereoscopic translation", that the studio and IMAX decided to plan a big-screen 3D version of Shrek. The film would have been re-released during the Christmas season of 2001, or the following summer, after its conventional 2D release. The re-release would have also included new sequences and a alternate ending.

Plans for this was dropped due to "creative changes" instituted by DreamWorks and resulted in a loss of $1.18 million, down from IMAX's profit of $3.24 million. Radio Disney was told not to allow any ads for the film to air on the station, stating, "Due to recent initiatives with The Walt Disney Company, we are being asked not to align ourselves promotionally with this new release Shrek. Stations may accept spot dollars only in individual markets." The restriction was later relaxed to allow ads for the film's soundtrack album onto the network. Trivia Robin Williams was originally going to have a role in the film, but dropped out when he found out that one of the producers, Jeffery Katzenburg, was producing the film, he dropped out. The reason why is because Williams recently worked with Katzenburg on Aladdin and had disputes with each other. There are many Disney references in this movie. Chris Farley was originally cast as Shrek and even recorded almost 100% of the dialog. But after he died from his drug overdose, his fellow Saturday Night Live member, Mike Meyers, took the role and demanded the screenplay re-written after looking at it.

Fairy Godmother was going to be in here but was cut, but was put in Shrek 2. Computer animation for the movie began in late 1996 and took four and a half years to complete. In fact it took so long that the crew began production on Shrek 2. Donkey was modeled after a real donkey from California. The burp that Fiona burps in the movie was a real burp that Cameron Diaz (Fiona's voice) did after she drank a Coke. Lord Farquaad | Villains Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Aristocrat, Monarch “ *laughs* Ahem! Run, run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me; I'm the Gingerbread Man! (Gingy: You're a monster!) I'm not the monster here; you are! You and the rest of that fairytale trash, poisoning my perfect world. Now, tell me; where are the others!? „ ~ Farquaad interrogating Gingy.

Lord Farquaad (simply known as Farquaad) is the main antagonist of DreamWorks's 5th full-length animated feature film, Shrek, and its 2003 3D short, Shrek 4-D or The Ghost of Lord Farquaad. In the film, Farquaad spent the first part capturing fairytale creatures so he could find the magic mirror. Once he did, he asked if DuLoc, the place he ruled, was the most perfect kingdom, but as he was not a king, DuLoc was not a kingdom, so he tried to marry Princess Fiona to become king. He despises creatures of any kind and sought to relocate the fairytale creatures to Shrek 's swamp. He attempts to cut a deal with Shrek by promising to remove the monsters from his swamp if Shrek could bring Princess Fiona to him, as he wanted to marry her. [ show ] Shrek In Shrek, Farquaad has banished all of the fairytale creatures from his land, forcing them to take refuge in Shrek's swamp.

Back at his castle, Farquaad tortures the Gingerbread Man named Gingy into revealing the location of the other fairytale folk that he hasn't been able to capture or banish. Just as the Gingerbread Man is going to reveal what he knows, the captain of the guards arrives and announces that they have found the Magic Mirror. Lord Farquaad asks the mirror if DuLoc is the perfect kingdom of them all. The mirror tells him that he's not truly a king, but he can become one if he marries a princess. In a parody of dating shows, the mirror introduces three different princesses for Farquaad to choose from: Cinderella, Snow White, and Princess Fiona. At his henchman, Thelonious 's suggestion, Farquaad chooses Princess Fiona, who is locked away in a castle tower guarded by a ferocious dragon. Despite the mirror's attempt to warn him about what happens at midnight, Lord Farquaad decides to plan a tournament to see which knight will be worthy enough to embark on a quest to retrieve Fiona. However, Shrek, who had traveled from his swamp to DuLoc accompanied by Donkey to ask Farquaad to move the fairytale creatures off his swamp interrupts the tournament.

Farquaad changes his mind and decides that whoever kills Shrek will be named champion. However, despite the knights' best efforts, they are all defeated by Shrek and Donkey. Impressed by Shrek's actions, Farquaad awards the ogre with the quest he had set to his knights. Shrek remarks that he's already on a quest to get his swamp back. Farquaad makes a deal with Shrek that if his is successful in the quest to rescue Princess Fiona, he will give the ogre his swamp back, fully restored to the way it was before the fairytale folk overran the place. Shrek and Donkey successfully rescue Princess Fiona from the dragon and the trio journey onward to DuLoc. Shrek and Fiona start falling in love, but Shrek overhears Fiona talking about how no one could love a hideous beast and thinks she is referring to him. The next morning, Shrek brings Lord Farquaad to Fiona. After handing over the deed, Farquaad immediately proposes marriage to Fiona, who agrees on the condition that they have the wedding before sunset. He takes Fiona back to his castle, while a heartbroken Shrek returns to his swamp.

But then Donkey comes to Shrek and tells him that Fiona was not referring to him when she said no one could love a hideous beast. So Shrek and Donkey go to crash the wedding, where Shrek admits his love for Fiona, Farquaad found it amusing and then tries to get Fiona to marry him, but then Fiona sees the sun setting and decides to reveal her spell. Disgusted, Farquaad orders for Shrek to be executed, and Fiona locked back at the tower and he crowns himself king. But then Shrek whistles for Dragoness, who destructively bursts in the window and devours Farquaad, and she belches his crown back out. He is last seen in Dragoness's stomach with a match singing "Staying Alive" and is later digested sometime after the Shrek dance party. Shrek 4-D In Shrek 4-D, a short featured in a simulator ride of the same name at Universal Studios Florida, Hollywood, Japan, and Singapore, Farquaad returned as a ghost and sent his henchman Thelonius to take Fiona to him so he could kill her by sending her over a waterfall, to make her his ghost queen so he could rule the underworld.

He also sent a giant stone dragon to eat Shrek and Donkey, but this failed, as during the fight between Dragon and the stone dragon, the stone dragon lost its wings in a tunnel and fell to a watery grave. After Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, and Thelonius fell over the waterfall, and were saved by Dragon. Dragon killed Farquaad (again) by breathing fire at him. The short is also known as The Ghost of Lord Farquaad. Shrek the Musical In Shrek the Musical, his role is the same as the movie. Unlike the movie however, Farquaad was portrayed as more of a comedic and less-dignified egomaniac. It was revealed that he was the son of the dwarf Grumpy and the princess from "The Princess and the Pea". Farquaad explained to his subjects that following his mother's death, Farquaad was abandoned in the woods by his father, and that he hated him for it. However, it turns out that Grumpy only kicked Farquaad out because he was a 28-year-old slacker living in his basement, which explains his "little" height.

Shrek The Third Farquaad doesn't appear once in Shrek's first sequel, Shrek 2. However, he did appear in its second sequel, Shrek The Third. When Prince Charming and Captain Hook demand Shrek's whereabouts, Gingy's life flashed before his eyes and he recalls the moment when Farquaad tortured them for the other fairy tale creatures whereabouts. Shrek Forever After Farquaad appears during the end credits of Shrek's third and final sequel, Shrek Forever After. Scared Shrekless In the Shrek Halloween special, Scared Shrekless, Shrek and his friends return to DuLoc to tell scary stories. It's revealed that DuLoc turned into a dark and terrifying place since Farquaad died. Shrek and Fiona used Farquaad's death as their main weapon to scare Donkey. Farquaad's picture is seen everywhere. Thriller Night In Thriller Night, Farquaad made a cameo along with other Shrek villains being resurrected as zombies and with Shrek began to dance after getting controlled by the Pied Piper . Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life Though rarely appearing, Lord Farquaad serves as the main antagonist of the pasta.

According to BROGRE.com, Farquaad is the creator of Drek , a blue ogre who looks like Shrek, but is affectionate, courageous, reliable, and loyal to Farquaad and is more ruthless than Shrek. Both Farquaad and Drek want to destroy Shrek and his brogres, or make them love Drek instead of Shrek and thus, spread all Farquaad's hate to the whole world. Drek appears the most time than Farquaad but he always gets killed by Shrek in many stories. Personality Farquaad is the villainous, ruthless, greedy, cruel, evil, (literally) short, short-tempered, egotistical, and iron-fisted ruler of DuLoc. He is an extremely selfish, arrogant, conceited, oppressive, and power-hungry dictator who doesn't care about anyone but himself. However, despite his villainy, Farquaad didn't see himself as a monster and when this was brought up to him by Gingy, he instantly dismissed it and even went as far to call him and the rest of fairy tale creatures which makes him completely xenophobic, contemptuous, and individualistic.

Farquaad also suffered from a Napoleon Complex and felt the need to overcompensate for his comical stature by being domineering and controlling. Other examples of this is the towering height of castle DuLoc,his own visage plastered on the village of duloc, confirming his obvious narcissism disorder, and in his grave where the statue of Farquaad was portrayed as being taller than the dragon that killed him. Farquaad is a heartless perfectionist whom saw that everything had to be done his way and the only way for DuLoc to become perfect was to exile all fairytale creatures. Farquaad's one and only dream was to become the official ruler of DuLoc. However to do this he needed a princess so the only reason he decided to wed Fiona was out of pure lust for power and not any love in his heart. Farquaad is also very sadistic and manipulative, as evidenced while he was torturing Gingy by severing his legs and taunting him further by repeating the line "Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man.".

Although in the first film where he was disgusted by Fiona's ogress appearance, he may have actually developed real feelings for her he may have developed genuine feeling for her after his death he wanted her to become his undead queen so he could rule the underworld. He is also very lazy as evidenced by him not wanting to rescue the princess himself so he arranged a tournament of Knights to battle for the honor, though this might also be because he was too afraid to risk his own life and take his chances with a volcanic castle inhabited by an enormous dragon. To be fair, he is incredibly short in stature, so he was likely unable to do so. Farquaad is quite rude and obnoxious, so he has a bullying streak which shows as he calls both Fiona and Shrek hideous at the sight of their appearance and described them both as "it". Farquaad's overall attraction towards the princess may have been solely lust and even if they did wed there was no guarantee that he would treat her right. His hatred of fairy tale creatures, desire to export them and his tendency to stand on podiums giving speeches gives farquaad a strong Adolf Hitler-vibe. Gallery ~ Farquaad's plan about having to make a tournament at his kingdom.

Shrek 4-D Trivia IGN's Orlando Parfitt chose Lord Farquaad as his 14th favorite fantasy villain. Farquaad is probably the only main Shrek villain who don't come from a fairy tale, as Fairy Godmother , Prince Charming , and Rumpelstiltskin , the main antagonists of Shrek's three sequels, Shrek 2, Shrek The Third, and Shrek Forever After, actually came from them. Farquaad is based on former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, as Jeffrey Katzenberg (one of the founders of DreamWorks and a former executive of Disney) holds some animosity towards Eisner for firing him in 1994. Farquaad may also be based on Napoleon Bonaparte, due to being short, yet ruling with an iron fist and crowing himself to king. The late Alan Rickman was originally offered for the role of Lord Farquaad, but he turned it down to play Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series instead. Coincidentally, both film sagas began in 2001. His name may be a humorous play on the word "fuck-wad".

He is very similar to Sid Phillips from the 1995 Disney/Pixar film, Toy Story. Both are the main antagonists of the first films of a film series; Farquaad is the main villain of the first Shrek film, and Sid is the main villain of the first Toy Story film. Both did not appear once in the franchise's second film. Both made a cameo appearance in the franchise's third film. Coco LaBouche has a similar evil plot to Lord Farquaad from Shrek since they both want to marry a certain someone in order to gain a selfish desire to be promoted in their life. Lord Farquaad wants to marry Princess Fiona in order to become a true king, since the Magic Mirror advises him that he must marry a princess in order for his kingdom to be complete. Coco, on the other hand, wants to marry Chaz Finster in order to be promoted as the head of Yamaguchi's company, since Mr. Yamaguchi says that she has to be a lover of children in order to get the job, and Chaz Finster has a child known as Chuckie.

Coincidentally, Coco's partner-in-crime, Jean-Claude, is played by John Lithgow, who was also the same actor who played Lord Farquaad in Shrek. DreamWorks Villains Animated Features

Question: Whose voice was used for the character Lord Farquaar in the film Shrek?
Answer: John Lithgow