Before Chris Farley died of a drug overdose in 1997, he had recorded dialogue for an early version of the film Shrek. According to Farley’s bother Kevin, he had recorded most of his part, which was quite different than the Mike Myers version we would see in 2001.
“Originally the Shrek character was a little bit more like Chris, like a humble, bumbling innocent guy.”
The comedian’s brother doesn’t seem to be too bothered by the fact that the studio recast the part with Myers after Farley’s death.
“I understand why [they replaced him] “They probably wanted to make Shrek 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, so… The studio needed to do what they needed to do. It was a bad time, bad timing… a tragedy. Mike did a great job with Shrek. He knocked it out of the park.”
What’s interesting here is that they not only recast the role, but rewrote the film all together, forcing co-star Eddie Murphy to re-record his part. Kevin Farley discusses his late brother in detail in the new documentary I Am Chris Farley, which opens in theaters this weekend before debuting on Spike Aug. 10 at 9 p.m.
