Published May 14, 2026, 9:01 AM EDT

Before Mike Myers was the beloved ogre, it was going to be Farley

Chris Farley's brother reveals the version of Shrek we almost got

Source images: Dreamworks Animation; Paramount Pictures

The original voice of Shrek was Myers' fellow SNL castmate Chris Farley , whose untimely death in 1997 led DreamWorks Animation to recast the role. And while the version of Shrek we got is undeniably a triumph, one wonders what could have been. So ahead of the movie's 25th anniversary, Polygon reached out to one of the people who knew Farley best, his older brother Tom Farley, who also authored the beautiful, heart-wrenching biography The Chris Farley Show .

Tom Farley didn’t hear too much about Shrek while his brother was alive.…