Princess Fiona is a fictional main character who serves as the female lead in DreamWorks' animated Shrek film series. She made her first appearance in the first film in the franchise, Shrek (2001), voiced by American actress Cameron Diaz.
In the first film, Fiona appears as a princess plagued by a curse that transforms her into an ogress each and every sunset. Locked in a dragon-guarded castle for several years until she is "rescued" by an irreverent ogre named Shrek, whom she mistakes for a knight, Fiona is at first eager to have her spell broken via true love's kiss by Lord Farquaad so that she may remain human, but later she comes to love Shrek.
Princess Fiona in the Shrek films
Shrek
In the first film of the series, Fiona first appears as an option for a princess bride selected by Lord Farquaad, who desires to become a king in order to access dominant authority, in order to accomplish this dream. Refusing to listen to warnings of a secret possessed by Fiona, Farquaad proceeds with his plan and decides to search for the woman so he may marry her and become a king, though she is soon encountered by Donkey and Shrek, and at first the group holds hateful feelings towards one another. However, late one night, Donkey learns that because of a magical spell that had been cast on her years before, Fiona transforms into an ogress every night, but by morning reverts to her regular human form. Eventually, Shrek and Fiona start to warm up to each other and perhaps even begin to fall in love, but this is interrupted when Shrek and Fiona get into a misunderstanding followed by Shrek bringing Lord Farquaad to get Fiona, who then proceed to a marriage. Shrek and Donkey interrupt Fiona's wedding ceremony and try to cancel any possibilities of her wedding Lord Farquaad. Before they can kiss, the sun sets, and Fiona's ogre transformation spell is triggered and manages to appall Farquaad into losing desires of marrying her. At the end of the movie, Shrek marries Fiona and Farquaad is swallowed by Donkey's new girlfriend, Dragon.
Shrek 2
In Shrek 2, Princess Fiona tries to convince Shrek to meet her parents in the kingdom of Far Far Away (a parody of Hollywood). While there, her Fairy Godmother, who had her locked away in the tower to begin with, still believes she is cursed. When Fairy Godmother finds out that Fiona is in fact married to an ogre, Fairy Godmother plots to kill Shrek and replace him with her son, Prince Charming. It turns out that the original plan had been for Prince Charming, not Shrek, to rescue Fiona and marry her, the King's way of repaying the Fairy Godmother for a favor she had done him while courting Fiona's mother. Fiona briefly returns to her human form from the first film after Shrek drinks a "Happily Ever After" potion, which makes both the drinker and their true love more beautiful. However, to make the change permanent Fiona must kiss her true love by midnight, leading Fairy Godmother to coerce King Harold into giving his daughter a love potion so she will fall in love with Prince Charming. Her plan ultimately fails when Harold, after seeing how much Fiona despises Charming, decides not to give her the potion. When Shrek tries to kiss Fiona so they can both remain human, she tells him that she wants to live happily ever after with the ogre she married. They then turn back into ogres, and Donkey (who had turned into a white stallion) turns back into a donkey.
Shrek the Third
In Shrek the Third, Princess Fiona becomes the acting Queen of Far, Far Away while her father is ill. When the latter passes away, Shrek sets out to find her cousin Arthur Pendragon (or Artie). She tells him that she is pregnant (something that she has been hinting since the start of the film). While she is having a baby shower, Prince Charming stages an invasion so that he can proclaim himself king of Far Far Away. Fiona organizes the resistance with her friends Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Doris the Ugly Stepsister, but Rapunzel betrays them to marry Prince Charming. Thanks to her mother's fighting abilities, they escape prison, and the other princesses cut loose' and become more independent. Artie makes a speech to convince the villains to go straight. In the end, Fiona gives birth to ogre triplets with Shrek by her side
Shrek Forever After
During the babies' birthday party, Fiona sees Shrek getting steadily more irritated and eventually losing his temper by smashing one of the birthday cakes. Outside Fiona confronts him about his outburst. Shrek responds that he is sick of not having his privacy respected and that he wishes everything as "back to the way they used to be...when the world made sense". When Fiona asks him if he means before he rescued her, Shrek cruelly confirms her fear. Fiona is shocked and upset by Shrek's actions, she tells him that he had everything he could have ever wanted: "three beautiful children", a "wife who loves [him]" and "friends that adore [him]". She goes back inside to the party, disappointed in him.
When Shrek makes his deal with Rumpelstiltskin, for a single day he is brought to a universe where he was never born. Here, Rumpel has seized power by tricking Fiona's parents out of ruling the kingdom of Far Far Away. Fiona remains under the witch's curse from the first movie and has subsequently become the leader of a group of Ogre resistance fighters. Shrek initially believes that the relationship between him and Fiona is still existent there but when she doesn't even recognise him, he finally accepts completely that the reality, he is in, is not his own and that Stiltskin has truly altered reality to be as if he never existed until now. Fiona is shown to still be kind hearted and caring but bitterly cynical and disillusioned about the power of true love, because she was never rescued from her tower. She begins to fall in love with him again when he starts training with her, but still does not kiss him (having only started to find him likable). But Fiona's attitude towards Shrek changes as she and the other ogres head off to take down Rumpelstiltskin once and for all. During the day, Shrek realises that a loophole will negate the deal if he can receive a True Love's kiss from Fiona. After a failed attempt, they realize that he has succeeded when Fiona's curse has been broken. The timeline returns to normal, and Shrek returns to his children's birthday party before he lashed out at everybody and warmly greets Fiona. The change in the timeline also restores the Ogres who seem to have disappeared in the first 3 shrek movies through unknown reasons
This is the only movie where Fiona has her hair down. She also reveals she always wanted to have a daughter named Felicia. We also learn that Shrek and Fiona's sons are Fergus and Farkle.
Shrek (in theatre)
Fiona appeared in the stage musical version of the 2001 film which debuted in 2008 and closed in 2010. She was portrayed by Broadway actress Sutton Foster, who earned a Tony nomination for this role.
In the musical, it is revealed that when Fiona was approximately seven years old, she was sent away to her tower to await the noble prince who would rescue her. Her only company were some old dolls and all she did was re-read fairy tales about princesses in similar situations (Rapunzel, Snow White, etc.) and learn about proper princess etiquette. Fiona waited 23 years (8,423 days), growing into a strong-willed, feisty and beautiful young woman and despite becoming more and more impatient (even going so far as to have a fit and rip an entire book right down the middle), she never gave up on the fairy tales. When Shrek finally arrived to rescue her, she tries to get him to act out the scene she always imagined would happen when her prince would come, though he ends up having to drag her away to escape the Dragon and her skeletons. Fiona is ecstatic that she is finally free, though confused at first as to why her champion refuses to give her "True Love's First Kiss". She is shocked and angry when Shrek reveals himself to be an ogre, but runs off to a nearby cave when the sun sets. During the finale song "Who I'd Be", she overhears Shrek and Donkey's conversation and is moved. She stands apart from them, alone in the moonlight, in her ogress form.
In Act Two, she wakes up bright and early to greet the day in the show stopper "Morning Person". Her singing accidentally makes a bluebird explode and she accidentally tosses a deer off a cliff, but when she helps a Pied Piper with his duties, the rats dancing becomes a full-blown tap number, complete with Fiona changing her dress into an attractive dance outfit and leading them. Shrek and Donkey walk in at the end, astounded by what they have seen. Fiona apologizes for her behavior, but she and Shrek begin a duel over whose childhood was worse (Here Fiona reveals that she was sent away on Christmas Eve, angering Shrek, who thought he beat her when he said he was kicked out on his seventh birthday). Upon realizing they were both abandoned at the hands of their parents, they begin a bond, which is sealed in a burping and farting contest between the two of them.
On reaching Duloc, Fiona is reluctant to finally leave her friends and shares one last campfire dinner with Shrek, who mutually doesn't want her to go either. When the sun sets again, she hides in a nearby barn and Donkey finds her in her ogre form. She tells him the story of her curse and begs him not to tell Shrek, because she believes nobody could love her when she looks like such a hideous beast. However, Shrek was outside about to tell her he loved her when he overheard the conversation and thought she was referring to him. The next morning, Fiona decides to tell Shrek, but he has already brought Lord Farquaad to her. She is rather unimpressed with his small stature and egotistical attitude, but accepts his proposal and convinces him to move the wedding to before sunset.
In a song originally in the Seattle previews but removed when taken to Broadway, Fiona prepares for her wedding but is unhappy as she has found the fairy tale ending is not really what she wanted. Before she and Farquaad can share a kiss, Shrek interrupts the wedding and is mocked by Farquaad when he tries to tell her he loves her. Caught between true love and breaking the spell, Fiona tries to run away but is stopped by a mob of fairy tale creatures that Farquaad had previously banished from the kingdom. After it is revealed that Farquaad is a "halfling" (half-human/half-dwarf) the sun sets and Fiona transforms amid the confusion. Shrek, while initially surprised, accepts the change, though Farquaad is furious and banishes her back to her tower when he proclaims himself the new king. The Dragon crashes through the window, swallows Farquaad, and Shrek and Fiona kiss. Fiona undergoes a miraculous transformation into...an ogress. She is surprised that "True Love's Form" isn't as beautiful as she thought it would be, but Shrek still thinks she is beautiful. Everyone celebrates and lives happily ever after.
Haven Burton, who understudied the role on Broadway, plays her on the North American tour. Amanda Holden originated the role in the West End until she was replaced by Kimberley Walsh and then Carley Stenson.
Personality
Princess Fiona is initially portrayed as the archetypal princess from fairy tales, speaking formally in matters of courtship and presenting high expectations of how she is to be rescued, who is to rescue her, and so forth. She seems to give off an air of prissiness and even snobbery to a degree (however this is shown to be purely out of her concern for breaking her curse, of which she is ashamed). Later, Princess Fiona's true self emerges, as she is really a very down-to-earth and independent woman who is a match or even better than Shrek when it comes to farting, belching and other bad habits. She is a loyal friend, and unlike princesses of fairy tales, an expert in hand-to-hand combat with knowledge of martial arts. She also has very bad manners (just like Shrek), since she is an ogre. However, she is much more well-mannered when in front of her parents.
Fiona has special talents as well. For example, besides her martial arts skills, she is able to sing so high that birds explode. Fiona is much more patient and kinder to Donkey than Shrek is at times. She is shown to be a very loving wife and mother. However, in Shrek Forever After, her alternate self is shown to be aggressive, single-minded and driven at times.
This "new" Fiona is shown to have arrived at this point after being disillusioned because Shrek never came to rescue her. Bitter and angry, she is shown to still be passionate and fiery but not as gentle and sweet as she was in the other movies, however these traits have not completely faded.
Fiona is extremely insightful, and she also has the skill of rallying other people, shown in Shrek 3 when her speech rallies the princesses to break out of the dungeons.
Other information
Early storyboards of an alternate opening shows that she was originally born an ogress to her human parents who were the rulers of Duloc. They had her locked in the tower under the lie that she was "of such rare beauty" she was kidnapped. They died, and the kingdom was under the rule of "an ambitious regent" - hinted to be Farquaad. When she 'became of age' to ascend the throne she escaped the tower and encounters a witch named Bib Fortuna (a reference to the Star Wars character of the same name) - who has narrated the entire sequence through her tarot cards.
She gave Fiona a potion which would make her beautiful; however the potion has no effect. But Fortuna warns her the potion has a side effect - she will change between her human and ogress form until she finds her true love. Later she was whisked away by her dragon guardian and returned to the tower.
A person planned to voice her in Shrek was Janeane Garofalo, who was set to star alongside Chris Farley. However, she was fired from the project with little explanation. In June 2007, Garofalo stated: "I was never told why [I was fired]. I assume because I sound like a man sometimes? I don't know why. Nobody told me ... But, you know, the movie didn't do anything, so who cares?". Princess Fiona also performed the naming ceremony for Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas on November 28, 2010.
Princess Fiona is also a nickname for Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland
Reception
Time magazine's Richard Schickel called Fiona "an excellent character," drawing specific attention to her fight with Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Schickel continued, "She is also not exactly what she seems to be." Kelly Vance of the East Bay Express wrote, "Princess Fiona is more charming, more vulnerable, perkier, and even more sensitive than if she were played by a human actress." Hollywood.com's Robert Sims jokingly wrote, "Princess Fiona could teach Charlie's Angels a lesson or two in romance and survival skills."
References
External links
- Princess Fiona on IMDB
