We have all likely seen Shrek, and if not, you have certainly heard of him. He is the smelly, bright green ogre who became so lovable within an entire generation of families worldwide. His story brought fairytales to life, showing recognisable characters before, during ,and after the stories written about themselves.

The titular character is voiced by award winning actor Mike Myers, known more commonly for his roles in the Austin Powers films.

Shrek made his boom onto the big screen in 2001 and brought with it a further star-studded cast and many good stories to tell surrounding its production.

Mike speaks regularly about the fun experience of working on set with names like John Lithgow, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy – but apparently, this did not mean that the film was an immediate hit with the actor.

In a recent interview with Vulture, he explained how he actually came to hearing of the film’s production and how the original idea was formulated and adapted by producer John Williams, who read one of his kid’s books and fell in love with the character, which he then developed into the film we now know and love.

Myers also detailed the story of being approached following the premiere of Saving Private Ryan, where he was quite distraught from the film, and was asked if he would ever consider playing an animated character.

Upon hearing the title of the film from producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who worked at Dreamworks, he had an initial response of ‘Well, that’s the worst f****ng title I’ve ever heard in my life’.

However, this quickly changed after he had viewed some of the film, and noticing the way it had completely ‘turned fairy tales on its head’, and off he went to record his dialogue for the film.

Shrek was adapted into the lovable character we all know (IMDB / Dreamworks)

Originally, the voice acting was to be done by Chris Farley, who sadly died in 1997 during the films pre-production stages, and this role was later handed to Myers, who originally decided to play him with a Canadian accent.

However, after Myers was not quite happy with the way it had turned out, he offered to re-record his voice lines again for free, this time with a Scottish accent.

Once studio executives saw the change, namely Steven Spielberg, who claimed that Myers was ‘absolutely right’, we were left with the cult classic, passed down between generations to this day.