Surprisingly or not, real life made the famous "Do You Know The Muffin Man?" scene from the first Shrek movie even better. In a recent interview, John Lithgow tells the story of how one of the most iconic scenes from the movie came about through an accidental discovery in the recording booth. Lithgow, who voiced Lord Farquaad, revealed that the voice of the Gingerbread Man that is in the Shrek movie, Conrad Vernon, was a staff member who would feed him lines as he was recording his part.

The scene takes place early on in the film, when the audience is first introduced to Shrek's antagonist, Lord Farquaad. The scene opens on Farquaad's henchman, Thelonius, "torturing" Gingy (as the Gingerbread Man is known in the movie) by dunking him into a glass of milk. Farquaad begins the interrogation, demanding that Gingy reveal the location of the other fairy tale creatures that he wants to get rid of, in search of his perfect world. It is during the exchange that Gingy asks Farquaad if he knows the Muffin Man, setting off a chain around which the iconic scene is built.

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Lithgow explained that while recording his parts in the first Shrek movie, he was alone in the sound booth, with no one to act off. Conrad Vernon, one of the staff members in the room at the time, would feed Lithgow lines. According to Lithgow, Vernon was so good at reading Gingy's lines that he was eventually cast in the role. This is notable because this scene is one of the most memorable from the movie, one that's still quoted and referred to in pop culture today. Part of what makes this such a good scene — and evidenced by this accidental casting — is that Lithgow and Vernon have such good chemistry. It's a credit to the team behind the movie that they saw this chemistry and made it a part of the final movie.

Shrek & The Incredibles Both Accidentally Cast Perfect Voices

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This is not the only time when a perfect casting choice was made accidentally. Pixar's The Incredibles' character Edna Mode was also cast accidentally. Director Brad Bird had originally wanted to cast Lily Tomlin for the role. When speaking with her, he did an impression of the kind of voice he was looking for in the role, trying to show Tomlin what exactly he was looking for. Upon hearing the voice, Bird was so good that Tomlin suggested to him that he just play the role. This is another example of a movie casting an iconic role almost by happenstance.

Both of these examples go to show that casting can be a tricky art. Often, filmmakers are able to find the perfect person to play a role and have that be the right choice from the get-go, such as Shrek being voiced by Mike Myers. That said, Shrek and The Incredibles are two examples of movies where casting choices were not planned ahead of time and happened as the production process went along. . They go to show that filmmaking requires flexibility and adaptability and films can be better for it.