Lost Roles is a weekly column exploring "what might have been" in movie and TV comedy as we take a different actor, writer, or comedian each week and examine the parts they turned down, wanted but didn't get, and the projects that fell apart altogether. This week, we turn our attention to Chris Farley, the beloved comedy actor who took Second City, Saturday Night Live, and the movie industry by storm before dying a tragic death at the hands of drugs at the age of 33 in 1997. Throughout his career, Farley was tied to some pretty big movie projects that he didn't get to follow through on, including starring in a sunnier version of The Cable Guy, portraying Ignatius J. Reilly in the "cursed" movie version of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces, and voicing the titular talking ogre in Shrek. It's heartbreaking that Chris Farley was taken from us when he was so young, but by examining the projects he was working on just prior to his death, we can get a feel for where his career might have taken him, had tragedy not struck.
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