The same was true for Eddie Murphy, who was the voice of the beloved waffle-loving Donkey in Shrek.Īnd funnily enough, playing Donkey in the movie made him realize that this was now his best work he had ever done. In every actor’s career, they are typically able to pick out their favorite role they have ever played, or at least, the best work they have ever done on a film or television show. That is quite the artistic reference for a kid’s movie. And he was the first to talk about the notion of a person having more layers to them, much like onions. The play was Peer Gynt from Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen. This was very deep, especially for Shrek, but it turns out the writers took their inspiration for the quote from a play. You get it? We both have layers.” Meaning you have to peel each one back to see that there is more going on than just what is on the surface. This baffles Donkey as he attempts to guess what he means by that.Īfter their guessing game, Shrek clarifies what he meant by saying, “Layers. Shrek starts to explain to Donkey that, “Ogres are like onions.” This particular scene was when Shrek and Donkey were on their quest to Lord Farquaad’s castle to try and get the fairytale characters out of his swamp. And it was all thanks to the ogre himself: Shrek. There was a certain scene in Shrek where we finally started to see there just may be more to this frightening ogre that we just have yet to see. In the end, the team went with a different version, as we know, but Jackson's concept art was still pretty incredible if you ask me. Sure, Shrek in the movies was still pretty gross and not entirely human-looking, but he still was made to be a bit more relatable and funny, with features that are decidedly more human than like an ogre. He looked far more like a scary, disgusting ogre that was described in the picture book, Shrek!, rather than the human-like version we met in the Shrek films. Jackson, and his version of Shrek was something very different than the Shrek we now know. In fact, they had four different artists come in for production design and they each submitted their own concept art for the project. And the same was true for the making of Shrek. They typically will come in, one by one, and pitch their ideas to the film's team, and they will then have to decide who best captured the essence of the characters. In any making of an animated film, there tends to be a long process where one or more artists come up with their own concept art of how they think the characters should be seen. So if Shrek was a childhood favorite of yours, as it is mine, then you will definitely enjoy these 25 Crazy Shrek Facts Only Super Fans Knew About The Dreamworks Classic. It became a staple of many of our childhoods and made us realize that there is always more than meets the eye when it comes to people.or ogres, in this case. You wouldn't think that a story about a scary and gross ogre falling in love with a princess would be something people would gravitate to, but it was. They would go on to have several other animated franchises including Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda, to name just a couple.īut Shrek was a movie that really stood out from all of the other children's movies that were out at the time. The movie not only ended up being a huge blockbuster hit but made its production company, Dreamworks, a household name. The story itself was based loosely on William Steig's 1990 children's picture book by the same name, but the writers of the film clearly took some creative licensing with their version. And if you were a grown-up bringing your child to the movie, you enjoyed the satirical fairytale story with its subtle crude jokes thrown in here and there. If you were a child, you were immediately drawn in by the hysterical disgustingness of the ogre, Shrek, and his adventure with Donkey to rescue Princess Fiona for Lord Farquaad. Shrek was the surprise hit of 2001 with its unique comedic take on fairytales.