“I said, ‘Guys, was this offered to Chris Farley and then he died?'”
Despite Myers explicitly asking that question, he says the filmmakers still denied the truth.
“Everyone looked at their shoes,” he recalled.
Chris Farley and Mike Myers on ‘Saturday Night Live’; Shrek.Gerry Goodstein/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty; Dreamworks
“I said, ‘No, but seriously, really?’
[They said,] ‘No.'”
That still didn’t set Myers at ease.
Mike Myers.Amanda Edwards/Getty
And I was right, but they didn’t tell me."
However, Myers said that he didn’t immediately give the character his defining Scottish accent.
So, I tried it and I just didn’t connect to it."
I said, ‘Scottish people are working class people, and it’s in that Euro-world.
You know what I mean?'"
However, DreamWorks CEOJeffrey Katzenbergdidn’t want to backtrack again.
“Jeffrey said, ‘No, I like what you’re doing,'” Myers remembered.
“And I said, ‘I don’t, Jeffrey.’
And he goes, ‘No, it’s fine.’
He goes, ‘We have to spend so much money to reanimate’ not true.”
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Myers took his case to one of DreamWorks’ other co-founders,Steven Spielberg.
“I said, ‘Steven, I want this to be good.
I love this idea of, “You are beautiful to me,"'” he remembered.
Because you could’t rip people off, man.
So I said, ‘If he’s Scottish, I get that.
I get the Scottish thing.’
It fits with Farquaad, who’s English.
It fits with the Euro thing.”
The actor said that Spielberg expressed hesitance about Myers starting over again.
“I said, ‘Well, I’m not getting paid more to do this.
You know, let me just do it.'”
TheJurassic Parkfilmmaker ultimately appreciated Myers’ dedication to getting the voice right.
“I did it.
“And it’s framed.
It’s in my house.
He goes, ‘You’re absolutely right.
You’re 100% more connected to it.'”
Listen to the full interview with Myers above.
