We all know the beloved animated character of Shrek. His signature Scottish accent and funny one liners have made the Shrek movie series popular with both children and adults. But did you know that beloved Scottish lilt almost didn't happen?

Chris Farley was orignally cast as the voice of Shrek, and actually recorded a large percentage of the movie before his sudden death. The studio scrambled to find another funny man who could carry the character, and settled on Mike Meyers. Meyers brought quite a lot to the movie, insisting on extensive rewrites to erase all of Farley's influence, and even changing some major plot points. 

The interesting part about this story is that Meyers originally voiced the character in his normal voice. The movie was well into production when he apporoached the producers with the bold request to revoice the entire movie using the Scottish brogue his mother used to read his bedtime stories in. He was so adamant that he even offered to pay the 4 million dollar cost to redo all the animation. But once the head honchos heard a few of the reconfigured lines, they agreed with Meyers and swallowed the cost.

As we all know, the movie was a smashing success, due perhaps in part to Mike Meyer's commitment to the role. Steven Speilberg apparently thought so, sending him a letter personally thanking him for his commitment to the role. 

I guess we will never know how the original version of Shrek would have measured up, but it just goes to show you that a talented voice artist goes a long way towards carrying your production. At Corporate Sound, we have a wide variety of available voice artists to choose from, with accents and international languages also available. We only work with the best talents, ensuring that your completed audio production is the best voiced, most porfessional one on the market.