--- --- # Chris Farley Voices Shrek in Rare Video Clip by [Andrea Towers / Entertainment Weekly](https://time.com/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Andrea Towers / Entertainment Weekly Aug 6, 2015 3:17 PM UTC by [Andrea Towers / Entertainment Weekly](https://time.com/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Andrea Towers / Entertainment Weekly Aug 6, 2015 3:17 PM UTC Funny man Chris Farley — the [underrated comedy movie star of our time](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/31/i-am-chris-farley-underrated-movie-star) — will forever be associated with the multitude of hilarious characters he played during his _SNL_ days and in loveable movies like _Tommy Boy_. But there was one particular role that would’ve been most iconic for the late actor: the lovable green ogre known as Shrek. Farley was not only attached to the DreamWorks feature, the role was primarily written for the comedian. [According to Farley’s brother Kevin](https://www.yahoo.com/movies/chris-farley-shrek-original-casting-how-different-125465444507.html), the character initially “was a little bit more like Chris, like a humble, bumbling, innocent guy.” Although the actor recorded 80-90 percent of the dialogue before he died from an overdose in 1997, the role was re-cast with Farley’s _SNL_ castmate Mike Myers. A recently leaked video on [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/3fy1de/chris%5Ffarley%5Fversion%5Fof%5Fshrek%5Fleaked/) featuring audio and illustrations with co-star Eddie Murphy (talking about the famous onion analogy) exhibits what might have been if Farley had been able to properly complete his work. Although the [original video](http://vimeopro.com/johngarbett/jgmprototypes/video/65988366) was uploaded two years ago on Vimeo, it’s just now making the rounds — and while Myers certainly made the character his own, it’s not hard to wonder what Farley could have done, given his great comedic skills. _This_ [_article_](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/06/chris-farley-shrek-video-clip) _originally appeared on_ [_EW.com_](http://www.ew.com/)_._ Chris Farley Voices Shrek in Rare Video Clip ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3987369/chris-farley-shrek/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3987369/chris-farley-shrek/"},"headline":"Chris Farley Voices Shrek in Rare Video Clip","datePublished":"2015-08-06T15:17:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T09:57:58.234Z","description":"The role of Shrek was primarily written for Farley before he died","url":"https://time.com/3987369/chris-farley-shrek/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Andrea Towers / Entertainment Weekly"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3987369/chris-farley-shrek/","name":"Chris Farley Voices Shrek in Rare Video Clip"}}]}] ```