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[man] In the beginning, Shrek met Donkey.
- [Donkey] Ah! Thank you! - [Shrek] Aah! No!
This is gonna be fun! We can stay up late,
swappin' manly stories and in the morning...
I'm making waffles.
- [roaring] - [Shrek] Gotcha!
- [man] Then, he saved Fiona. - [grunts]
- What kind of knight are you? - One of a kind.
[man] He met the parents...
- You can do this. - But I really...
- Really... - Really!
...don't... want... to... be...
...here!
[man] ...and befriended *** in Boots.
- Hey, look! A little cat. - [hissing]
- [Donkey] Look out, Shrek! - [screams]
- [man] He made Artie a king... - It's yours if you want it.
[man] ...and became a loving father.
I smell Shrek Junior!
Whoa!
[man] And in the final chapter, his world flipped upside-down.
It's me. Your best friend?
I've never seen you before in my life.
Do I know you?
- Um... Scott? - Shrek, actually.
[man] But, through it all, he continued to win us over
- with that classic ogre charm. - [roars weakly]
- [squawks] - [man] Join us as we shine
the spotlight on one of the most beloved
animated characters of all time.
Thank you very much. I'm here till Thursday!
[laughing]
Great! Let's get started.
I have loved doing Shrek. I love the character.
It's been a great experience, and I love the message:
You are beautiful, who you are.
And, you know, Shrek has to constantly learn the lesson
that he has to love himself.
You know what I like about you, Shrek?
You've got that kind of, "I don't care
what nobody thinks of me" thing.
I like that. I respect that.
I always say that Shrek is the Tony Soprano for kids,
'cause he's a character that's allowed to be frustrated
and angry, but at the same time,
he's very funny and he's very charming.
Can't we just settle this over a pint?
[man] Shrek is just universal and timeless and everyone,
no matter who you are in life,
has experience feeling like the outsider.
And Shrek is the quintessential outsider.
What you got against the whole world, anyway?
Look, I'm not the one with the problem, OK?
It's the world that seems to have a problem with me.
Shrek's every man. I think he's every person.
I think we all wish we were more handsome,
less smelly...
...cuter, taller, skinnier.
And so I do think that he does sort of represent
each and every one of us in terms of who he is
and what he wants to be.
I'm an ogre!
You know, grab your torch and pitchforks!
- Doesn't that bother you? - Nope!
[man] Even though he's not the character
that necessarily has the most laughs and the funniest lines,
he's the character that grounds the entire series.
And I think it's his emotional journey
throughout the films that I really identify with.
You know what the best part of today was?
I got the chance to fall in love with you all over again.
Ultimately, he lets the walls down
and accepts who he is.
And when he does that, he finds true love.
He's rewarded for taking those walls down.
That's a very powerful allegory.
I was hoping this would be a happy ending.
I ran into Jeffrey Katzenberg at the premiere
of Saving Private Ryan, and he came over and said,
"Are you interested in doing animation?"
And I went home and thought,
"I'm gonna have to write an animated movie."
I had no idea I was being offered a job.
Next day, I got a call from him saying,
there's this fairy tale called Shrek.
And I was like... "Shrek."
"Can you change the name?"
And he goes, "No, we're quite confident."
So I thought, "Always listen to Jeffrey Katzenberg."
- Ogres are like onions! - Good.
And then he told me the message of the film,
which is that you're already beautiful.
Don't let other people tell you you're not.
And I thought, "When I have grandkids,
that's the sort of well-told,
silly, fun fairytale I want to take them to."
Then he said Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz
and John Lithgow are in it. So I said, "Well, then I'm in."
Now, Ogres, oh, they're much worse.
They'll shave your livers,
squeeze the jelly from your eyes.
Actually, it's quite good on toast.
- Yeah! - [laughter]
Mike brings to Shrek Shrek, basically.
I can't separate the two. Mike is Shrek.
Here's persuasion and here's reason.
[man] Mike gives a lot.
He's very emotionally invested in the character of Shrek.
He looks out for Shrek. Mike brings a lot more than just a performance.
[man] He knows Shrek personally, inside his head.
So if we have a question about his character,
he really knows where he's coming from.
You don't want to see me angry, do you?
Mike comes in with notes on the story. Mike's a writer.
He comes in with story notes that are brilliant.
It's incredibly fun when you're recording with him
and between takes he's staying in character, so all of a sudden
he's making fun of you and he's staying as Shrek
and it's Shrek that's making fun of you, not Mike.
[Adamson] You're coming up with stuff to scare them off that
- "ogres are worse than giants." - Ogres are worse than giants?
- Than giants. [laughter] - Fabulous.
Mike is at his best when he can create
a character and step into it.
And when you cast Mike Myers in a role,
I don't think you get Mike Myers. You get one of this
plethora of characters that Mike Myers is, or can create.
Better out than in, I always say.
[laughter] It's a gift.
[Katzenberg] The thing that was incredible about Mike,
when we cast him, we cast him for his original voice.
And we recorded the movie
and started animating it, using his voice.
And I showed him the movie when it was up on the reels,
for the first time, and when the lights came up,
he said to me, "You know, I have to say, I love this movie.
It's a privilege to be in it.
I think you've made something that is a classic.
I'm proud to be a part of it.
Eddie is brilliant, Cameron's brilliant,
John's brilliant and I'm boring."
He said, "I want you to give me a chance
to create a voice that in that character...
Now I understand the movie.
Now I can see what it has, the whole movie."
And Mike said, "I can give you something much better.
Let me create something for you."
Come on, Donkey, I'm right here beside you, OK?
I just felt it was missing something,
and I think what was missing
was the connection to my childhood.
Because my experience growing up as a kid in Canada
was of immigrant parents from Liverpool.
They'd been there for 20 years.
So, that accent,
a lot of the corners had been rounded off,
and I felt that it was important to not focus
on the accent so much, but on the spirit of being
a little kid and having stories read to you.
You were expecting Prince Charming?
And in having Shrek be British,
I could have a connection to my British childhood.
And I asked them if they wouldn't mind
if I could do it again with that connection.
And they graciously and generously
allowed me to do that.
And I really feel that I got to dig into sort of
little kid part, you know,
that's important for a fairy tale.
Oh, yes, it's an enchanted forest.
There's something that is noble about it and timeless about it.
And then, with his sort of wicked sense of humor, you know,
and his little twist on it, it just worked.
Let me put it this way, Princess:
Men of Farquaad's stature are in short supply.
And I got a wonderful letter from Steven Spielberg saying,
"Dear Mike: Thank you so much for caring.
Thank you so much for insisting on it being better."
And, later on, I found out
how much they had spent on it... ouch.
But, um... I wish they'd told me, but they didn't.
And in many ways, I guess, I'm glad they didn't.
[laughing]
What Mike did is, is that he understood and saw
the heart and soul of the character of Shrek
and created a voice,
which we then molded our physical character
around that voice and then gave it life.
And the wonderful qualities and lovability of that character...
because certainly to look at, he is no dreamboat. [laughter]
- Hey, you! - [screams]
[Katzenberg] But what Mike did is, is both in the words
and the way he made those words come to life,
gave Shrek his heart.
- One of a kind. - There you go. That's the one.
[man] Originally, they were thinking about doing Shrek
as computer-generated characters over a live-action background,
which was actually going to be
models and miniatures shot on a stage.
Can somebody come in here and work on Shrek, please?
Shrek's character had to be changed many, many times.
And there was a long period of development,
many different stages of different character design.
And that's the thing that many people don't get
is just how incredibly time-consuming it is.
So when you think, "Go design a character,"
it has to be appealing, it has to be unusual,
it has to be physically doable.
You know, on the computer, you've gotta have
the technology to be able to do it.
And it's gotta feel like it will live for a long time.
And it's a tall order.
You're not exactly what I expected.
[Warner] The thing that sort of pushed us over the edge
on this film toward making it, finally,
what it ended up becoming,
was realizing we wanted to make a film that we liked.
And tried to sort of shut out the voices that said,
"It's gotta be this, it's gotta be that."
And stay out!
Like, what do we like? What makes us laugh?
That gave us the freedom to make it, I think.
[Shrek] You've had a lot of time to plan this, haven't you?
From the very beginning, actually, it was tough
for us to find the style of animation
with the characters that work for this movie.
We went through a period of three to six months
just to come up with the look of how they should move.
We did tests that the characters are more cartoony, and, also,
we did tests that the characters are more theatrical.
Whoa, Shrek!
You didn't tell us you were in a play!
And then we realized, we need a style that fit the movie
somewhere between theatrical and realistic.
The princess here was just...
[groans]
Ow...
I think the animation is somewhere between
an animated cartoon and live action.
There's moments even when I'm looking at the characters
where I forget that they're animated characters.
There's expressions that the characters get where,
at times, I just look at them and I believe
that they're real people, that they have real feelings.
Shrek! Hold still!
- [*** in Boots screeches] - [Shrek groans]
- Did I miss? - No.
The thing about Shrek is that at the bottom of it,
they're still all stories about us, and I think that's
what's so cool about the Shrek franchise.
If you look at all the stories, every single film is basically a story about him
making his own mess and cleaning it up.
But, you know, like most of us, it takes a long, long time.
Fiona! [groans]
Where did we find that guy?
In Shrek 1, Shrek was an ogre who had to learn how to
love himself, and learn that people
actually can love an ogre for who he is.
In Shrek 2, he had to learn how to be part of a family.
In Shrek 3, he had to learn how to accept responsibilities.
So we looked at his journey in life,
compared it to ours, and thought,
"Well, you know, sometimes life takes you full circle,
right back where you started from."
In the fourth and final chapter, we thought,
well, you know, perhaps he could go full circle.
And through all this hustle and bustle of life,
he's lost himself a little bit, which, in many ways,
parallels a lot of people's life journeys.
I used to be an ogre. Now I'm just a jolly green joke!
In every one, he just wants to get back to that swamp.
And what I thought was interesting
about the final chapter is he made it.
He's back at the swamp, and he's surrounded
by the people that he loves and people that love him,
and he's not satisfied.
And, again, it answers that question
of what happens after "happily ever after?"
Like, Shrek should be living happily ever after,
and he's not happy.
And so, I think that was a really interesting
midlife crisis for Shrek to be going through.
Undies!
And it seemed like a natural evolution of his character.
And beyond that, there's a very relatable thing
that people think about, "What if life was different?"
- [crashing] - [laughing]
[Mitchell] "What if I didn't get married? What if I didn't have kids?
What if I didn't have to work every Saturday and Sunday?"
Sometimes I wish I had just one day
to feel like a real ogre again.
But we, of course, see through all his grumpiness. There's a lot of love there.
And finally, he realizes he's a part of this community.
He realizes everything that he's acquired,
and he learns how to appreciate it.
And I think, much like our own lives, as we grow,
Shrek has done this.
It just feels like the perfect ending for all the Shrek movies.
[applause, cheering]
Seeing how much people love Shrek,
has been an unbelievably satisfying experience.
[Murphy] What kid doesn't like Shrek?
You won't find one kid that will say, "Eh, I don't like it."
- Do the roar. - I'd rather not.
- Do it. - [roaring]
[Meyers] The weird thing about being Shrek
and little kids coming up to me is that they will say lines
back to me that I don't even remember having said.
One time, a little kid came up to me and said,
"It's on my to-do list."
- [roaring] - You didn't slay the dragon?
It's on my to-do list. Now come on!
And I was like, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
And they're like, "You know, Shrek."
Yes, yes. I do remember him saying that.
It's just a joke.
[Meyers] It's been an amazing experience,
and I think it's a classic.
I think it's a fairy tale classic.
I'm very, very proud to be associated with it.
I think at the center of Shrek is a very big heart.
He, in the end, is a very gentle and wonderful character,
who on the outside acts like a big, green,
terrifying ogre, and yet you've come to understand
that inside is someone of extraordinary
compassion with a very big heart.
[rock music plays]
Aw, come here, you!
- And they lived... - Happily...
- Ever... - After.
[cheering]
[narrator] There are many things you may not have seen
or noticed in your first viewing of Shrek Forever After.
- I see you! [babbling] - [up-tempo music plays]
[narrator] Shrek Forever After features an all-star cast
of returning voice talent.
- Mike Myers... - [man] Excellent.
...Eddie Murphy,
Cameron Diaz
- and Antonio Banderas. - Ha!
- And Larry King as Doris. - He looks just like you.
- Regis Philbin as Mabel. - Looks like you forgot the candles!
- John Cleese as King Harold. - This is madness.
And Julie Andrews as Queen Lillian.
Just because you're an ogre doesn't mean you have to eat like one.
And new star talent, including Jon Hamm as Brogan.
That's quite a friend you've got there.
- Craig Robinson as Cookie. - Get 'em while they're hot!
- Jane Lynch as Gretched. - Works on me.
Ryan Seacrest as the father of Butter Pants.
How about one of those famous Shrek roars?
And Lake Bell, Mary Kay Place, Kristen Schaal, Meredith Vieira
and Kathy Griffin as the witches.
[chuckles] You call this guy a bounty hunter?
In the tradition of the previous Shrek films,
many of the filmmakers also provide voices
- for the characters. - I love it. I love it!
Director Mike Mitchell voices one of Rumpel's witches...
Maybe we can hire a professional bounty hunter?
- ...the tour guide... - Undies!
- ...and Butter Pants. - Do the roar.
Head of story, Walt Dohrn voices...
Rumpelstiltskin!
And Krekraw.
Anyone who knows Fiona
knows this stuff ain't gonna work on her.
Shrek story artist Cody Cameron voices the Three Little Pigs...
- They have lollipops. - No, I ate them.
- You didn't share? - Well, you didn't share the croissants!
- ...and Pinocchio. - Sayonara, termites! Hello acne!
Executive Producer Aron Warner voices the Wolf.
Yes, Mr. Stiltskin.
And Shrek 2 director Conrad Vernon voices Gingy.
Gingy snap!
During development of Shrek Forever After,
the filmmakers brainstormed many ideas to add
into the final chapter of Shrek.
Magical transactions are my specialty.
One early story draft included a flashback sequence
of Shrek during his teen years.
Ooh. Nice one. [chuckles]
Originally, Brogan was named Gnimrahc,
or "charming" spelled backwards,
and was intended to be a love interest for Fiona.
[laughing]
Eventually, the filmmakers renamed him Brogan
and he took on the look he has today.
Fate has delivered us a comrade in arms, and for that we are thankful.
Rumpelstiltskin also went through quite a transformation
during the character development process.
Have I been waiting for you!
First seen in Shrek the Third,
Rumpel was originally reconceived as a character
with a rat-like face and tail.
Yeah, I've heard enough of your toot-a-lee-***! You blew it!
Eventually, the character design team decided
to dial back the animal traits
and they settled on a more human look.
You know, actually not a bad idea.
In fact, they even used art director Max Boas' chin
as a reference for Rumpelstiltskin's final design.
Didn't it look bigger in the catalogue?
While the Pied Piper has no dialogue in the film,
his music numbers are performed by Jeremy Steig,
renowned jazz flautist and son of William Steig,
- the author of Shrek. - [sighs]
In order to make the ogre dancing sequence look
authentic, the filmmakers shot reference video
of a professional dance troupe.
The choreographer of the dance number was Michael Rooney,
son of legendary actor Mickey Rooney.
Ooh! Yeah! Cookie's bringing the heat out the kitchen.
Shrek Forever After also features many tributes
- to the original film. - Yeah! Waffles!
Shrek's villager warning...
This is the part where you run away!
[whispering] This is the part where you run away.
...*** in Boots' signature motto...
Feed me... if you dare.
Fear me, if you dare.
...and the Fiona bird explosion.
- [shrieking] - [honking, explosion]
- [shrieking] - [screeching]
[bird clucks, explodes]
These are just a few of the buried secrets you can find
inside Shrek Forever After and all the Shrek films.
[woman] Once upon a time
in a world full of dragons and magic spells,
an ogre and a talking donkey set off to rescue
a princess in a tower.
That was me, by the way.
Hi, I'm Cameron Diaz,
the voice of Princess Fiona in the Shrek movies.
I was so honored to be a part of the original film,
to watch the brilliant team of DreamWorks animators
bring Shrek to life onscreen
and to give voice to a beautiful princess
and an even more beautiful ogress.
Well, it's still an unbelievable thrill, and now
that Shrek Forever After has wrapped up the story of Shrek,
you can relive the original adventure all over again.
A chance to go back to the beginning
and learn even more about Donkey, Lord Farquaad,
and the ogre of my dreams, live on stage, in Shrek the Musical.
♪ Let your freak flag wave Let your freak... ♪
The fantastic songs and dances of Shrek the Musical bring
a whole new dimension to the story we already know and love.
As a member of the Shrek family, I am so excited to be able
to usher you backstage and meet the talented people
who have come together to transform Shrek
into live theater, making Shrek, Donkey and Fiona
sing and dance while still making you laugh.
So put on your boots, get out your bug spray
and join me as we go from swamp to stage
with a rare look inside the world of Shrek the Musical,
where magic happens every night.
♪ Let your freak flag fly ♪
[audience cheering]
[male] ♪ And then I saw her face ♪
[chorus] ♪ I saw her face ♪
- ♪ Now I'm a believer ♪ - ♪ I saw her face ♪
The story of Shrek the Musical is the story of Shrek I.
We wanted to recreate that world
in a special, theatrical way onstage.
But people who know the Shrek world
and the Shrek movies, they'll recognize little bits
and pieces that we also put into the story.
Do you know the Muffin Man?
- The Muffin Man? - The Muffin Man.
Yes, I know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane.
Well, she's married to the Muffin Man.
- The Muffin Man?! - The Muffin Man!
She's married to the Muffin Man!
The idea, too, is to not to do
literally the movie onstage.
It's to actually... What can you do onstage
that you can't do in a movie, and also to expand
on some of the characters and some of their back-stories,
and that's what's great about the show.
[male] Ah, man, what could be better than this?
- [Donkey] ♪ I sing a song ♪ - [Shrek] ♪ Why me? ♪
- ♪ I hit the road ♪ - ♪ A simple answer ♪
- ♪ It's the way to get around ♪ - ♪ Would be fine ♪
I think it's the spirit of Shrek, the spirit of Fiona,
the spirit of Donkey, Farquaad...
That's what you look for when you start the casting.
[shrieking] It's hideous!
That's not very nice. It's just a donkey.
[Moore] Shrek has a big heart.
I mean, he's grouchy, because ogres are a little bit grouchy
and the world has been kind of mean to him, so he's grouchy.
But the secret is that he's a big softie on the inside,
and he really wants to connect with people.
He's a lot of fun... I mean, he's a lot of fun to be around.
- He also farts a lot. - [Shrek farts]
- Whoa! - [audience laughs]
Fiona's a princess.
Who's been locked in a tower since she was seven years old.
And, um, she has another interesting side to her...
♪ Good morning, birds ♪
♪ Good morning, trees ♪
♪ Oh, what a lovely day ♪
...besides being a princess, is that she's an ogre, too.
♪ Standing here in all my glory ♪
♪ I am sweetness I am bratty ♪
♪ Of a princess I'm a fatty ♪
♪ When I'm with you I am happy ♪
I think Donkey has the biggest, purest heart of anybody in the show
because he's kinda... What you get is what you see.
Shrek? Remember when you said ogres have layers?
- Oh, I... - I got a little confession to make.
Donkeys don't have layers!
We wear our fear right out there on our sleeves.
I think of him as kind of primary colors.
Yeah.
There's not a lot of in-between.
He's... happy or he's sad.
Uh, Thelonius?
- [glass shattering] - You were saying?
- Oh, Lord Farquaad. Poor thing. - He's short.
- [Moore] He's short. - [Ashford] He's really short.
He doesn't want to admit it, hopes nobody else can see,
- but... - Yeah.
He's a hero...
- He's a hero... Yeah. - ...with a short little body.
♪ It's a big, bright beautiful world ♪
[Moore] The first thing to make it a musical
was to make the music for it because
it wasn't a musical to begin with, in the movie.
So it was to find the right composer
and lyricist to write all the songs to go with it.
♪ Sing a song it's the travel song ♪
♪ When you gotta go somewhere ♪
When you're writing a musical,
you have to tell the story through song.
And so the biggest thing that we had to do was crack open
the characters' hearts and have them sing about what they're feeling.
♪ Yeah, your big, bright beautiful world ♪
♪ Is all teddy bears and unicorns ♪
♪ Take your fluffy fun ♪
♪ And shove it where the sun don't shine ♪
And also there's someone like Fiona
and we had asked ourselves, "Well, when someone's shut in a tower,
what the heck do you do for all of that time?"
♪ It's me, Fiona ♪
♪ Now, I know he'll appear ♪
♪ 'Cause there are rules and there are scriptures ♪
[male] Let's hear it for those two dancers.
Aren't they terrific, huh?
This type of job is taking very specific characters,
very specific character types,
pigs and ducks, sometimes bunny rabbits or elves,
and you... creating movement for them
or creating movement around that kind of costuming.
- ♪ Three blind mice ♪ - Watch your step, girls.
♪ Three blind mice ♪
♪ See how they run ♪
There's a lot of visual humor, a lot of visual storytelling
and movement... humor through movement
that only we get to use because we do have tap shoes
and we do have the ability to dance.
[Shrek] ♪ I'd sail away I'd see the world ♪
♪ I'd reach the farthest reaches ♪
♪ I'd feel the wind I'd taste the salt and sea ♪
♪ And maybe storm some beaches ♪
♪ That's who I'd be ♪
One of the most exciting things about the live show
is at the very, very beginning
when the house lights start to go out,
they're so excited to see these characters
- that they know and love... - [audience cheering]
...and they're so anxious to see them, I think, in the flesh.
And just like the movie does,
the show throws you some twists and turns.
It isn't exactly like you think it's gonna be.
♪ Say, "Hey, world I'm different ♪
♪ And here I am ♪
- ♪ Splinters and all" ♪ - [audience cheering]
[Moore] It's great to hear the audience laugh.
I mean, of course it's great to hear
the audience laugh in a movie theater,
but when it's live and the actor can tell...
Audiences, they're a big participant
in the way the show goes, you know?
Especially in a musical, so I love hearing them laugh.
Also, it means maybe we did our job right.
♪ Then I saw her face ♪
- ♪ Now, I'm a believer ♪ - Whoo!
♪ Whoa! Not a trace ♪
♪ Of doubt in my mind ♪
♪ I believe ♪
♪ Come on, I can't hear you ♪
♪ I believe ♪
- ♪ I believe ♪ - Whoo!
♪ I believe I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe I believe, I believe ♪
♪ I believe, I believe ♪
[cheering and whistling]
Pretty amazing, huh?
In the same way that it takes hundreds of animators,
editors and sound engineers to animate Shrek for the movies,
there are so many people behind the scenes of a musical,
all coming together to create a big, bright, beautiful world
and bring the original adventures of Shrek to life,
live on stage.
Shrek the Musical is currently playing
a 60-city tour across the country,
and will be coming to a city near you.
So you can relive the story that everyone knows and loves
in a whole new way.
[music ending]
[audience cheering, whistling]