“Unbeknownst to Donkey, he’s become the third wheel, but he hasn’t figured that out because he’s a jackass,” Murphy laughs. “Shrek and Fiona love him, but you’ve got to pick your moments, you know. Comes the time when ogres need some alone time. But Donkey is such an optimist; he’s always looking at the bright side of everything. He’s thinking, ‘This is all good. It’s all worked out and we are together at last.’ He is a happy-go-lucky Donkey…I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Adamson states, “Eddie is an incredibly intuitive comedian. I mean, we’d sit and pitch him a sequence and he’d quietly nod and maybe smile…and then we’d start reading the scene together, and you find yourself trying to keep up, which I usually couldn’t do. You never know what’s going to come out of his mouth. He does more than merely read the lines or just improv; he embodies the character.” Lipman agrees, “Eddie is pure genius. When he switches it on, he is Donkey, and every word that comes out of his mouth is precious and hysterical. It’s gold.”
In “Shrek 2,” Donkey gets some unwelcome competition for the role of “annoying talking animal” in Shrek’s life from that fashionable feline, Puss In Boots. The story of Puss In Boots depicts him as a clever and fearless ogre killer, which would make him a formidable adversary for Shrek. But fate turns the tables on Puss and he decides to join forces with Shrek and a very reluctant Donkey.
Adamson relates that “Puss In Boots” had been a favorite fairy tale of his as a child. “He is such a great character. In the original story, Puss In Boots is an ogre killer who helps his master gain the attention of the king, so it seemed appropriate that in this case he would go from being hired as an ogre killer to helping Shrek win the king’s favor. All of those elements worked together for our story.”
The filmmakers initially thought of developing Puss In Boots as another “English-type” character, but that seemed far too conventional for their unconventional fairy-tale world. After deciding instead to make him their first Latin character, they had only one actor on their list to play Puss In Boots. “We pictured him as Zorro embodied in a cat, so from that moment on, Puss In Boots was Antonio Banderas,” Adamson reveals.
Making his animation debut, Antonio Banderas leapt at the chance to play Puss In Boots, or, as Banderas refers to him, “El Gato con Botas in Spanish. He is a character I have known since I was maybe three, but I never thought I would have the chance to play him. It was also great fun to have a little laugh at the expense of my Zorro character.”
“Antonio gave Puss In Boots a Zorro personality times ten,” Vernon says. “He definitely embraced his character. He was practically climbing the walls in the recording studio. He was whipping around, hissing and spitting and marking his territory,” the director laughs. “It was amazing, because we thought we made that character over the top, but Antonio took it to the next level and made it his own, which was fantastic.”
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