8 Fictional Movie Villains Inspired By Real People

Lord Farquaad, villain in the first Shrek film, is the short and short-tempered ruler of Duloc, a towering medieval city.

A behind-the-scenes feud between Michael Eisner (former Disney CEO) and Jeffrey Katzenberg (who used to head up Disney's motion picture division) resulted in Katzenberg modelling Farquaad on his former boss.

To put it bluntly, Eisner and Katzenberg did not like each other. As a result, Katzenberg was forced to resign from Disney in the mid-90s, and went on to form DreamWorks SKG, where he set about producing one of the studio's first movies, Shrek.

And it was here where Katzenberg saw an opportunity to subtly hit back at Eisner, by loosely basing the film's villain on him.

Eisner is a very tall man, and is infamous for saying "I think I hate that little midget" in reference to Katzenberg - so the fact that Farquaad is tiny is Katzenberg's way of turning the tables on his old colleague.

Farquaad and Eisner have the same pale, square face, and in addition, Farquaad's name sounds a heck of a lot like a certain derogatory term, which we shall not repeat here. The character also rules over a jolly fairytale land, living in a city (Duloc) that bears many similarities to a Disneyland theme park.