Lost Footage of Chris Farley’s Shrek Released Online

DreamWorks Animation’s most successful franchise to date, Shrek, was originally intended to be very different from what we know and love today. Shrek the ogre, voiced by Mike Myers, was originally going to be played by Chris Farley (who sadly passed away a few years before the film’s release). Up until now we never heard any of his work for the film, until recently when some of the lost footage featuring his voice work appeared online.

Farley recorded pretty much all his lines for the film before he tragically passed away of a drug overdose in 1997. A new clip that, released online by a former development producer on the film, shows a storyboarded scene from the film featuring some never before heard voice recordings of Farley as Shrek.

[The video appears to be removed from YouTube]

While its definitely hard to imagine anyone other than Mike Myers as the grumpy, Scottish ogre, its certainly interesting to see this story reel and see how different this movie could have turned out. In an interview with Yahoo Movies, Chris Farley’s brother, Kevin Farley, discussed his brother’s involvement in the project. “Originally the Shrek character was a little bit more like Chris, like a humble, bumbling innocent guy,” he said. He continues to say, “I understand why they replaced him, they probably wanted to make Shrek 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, so…” After Farley’s passing Mike Myers was cast for the part.

What do you think of this newly discovered footage featuring Chris Farley as Shrek?

Edited by: Hannah Wilkes