Swashbuckling cat, devious dad take over 'Shrek 2'

LOS ANGELES -- Who would dare steal from two bickering ogres and an overly talkative donkey? Try a sword-jabbing kitten, and a jittery, conniving king-in-law.

Check out the supporting characters who snatch away the scenes from voice stars Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy in "Shrek 2," which opens Wednesday:

King Harold

"Monty Python" star John Cleese provides the voice of the king, who is aghast to find his daughter, Princess Fiona (Diaz), has transformed into an ogre and is married to the swamp-dweller Shrek (Myers).

The good king sets out to ruin their romance so Fiona can be human again and marry the vacuous Prince Charming.

"What every parent knows is that we worry unnecessarily about our kids," Cleese said. "A lot of our worry doesn't help them at all, and the kids get fed up with it -- but they will do exactly the same."

His King Harold, who hides his own deep, dark-green secret, also illustrates the peril of hypocrisy for overly protective parents.

"A lot of the advice we give is advice we should first be taking ourselves," Cleese said. "The relationship between parents and children is full of trip wires."

Puss-in-Boots

To thwart the new marriage of Shrek and Fiona, the king sends an assassin to wipe out his unseemly son-in-law: Puss-in-Boots.

He's a cute, little cat with the big shoes and pointy sword, but Antonio Banderas says he sees himself differently.

"He's a big shot. In his mind he is, like -- whoa, Alexander the Great! He's a solitary guy with 'a lot of experience,"' the actor said, deepening his voice to the low growl he used for the character.

Most of Puss' laughs come from the disparity between his attitude and appearance.

"We wanted to make him a rough voice, a guy who has really been worked by life," Banderas said. "Then when you see him ... How he dares? How he dares to come with this arrogance!"

Puss' greatest weapon: his eyes, which he makes wide and pitiful -- to disarm his enemies before his sword finishes them off.

"There is a little spoof on Zorro," said Banderas, who played the masked hero in a 1998 movie and will return in a sequel this summer. "The possibility of laughing at yourself a little bit is always very healthy. "

Puss' role in the movie grew as the filmmakers became more fond of his strangeness.

"They saw a lot of potential in the cat. He was a character who really interrupts the relationship between Donkey and Shrek. Donkey never had a guy beside him who is as weird as he is," Banderas said. "When Donkey gets sleepy, Puss approaches and says to Shrek, 'Boss ... should we shave him?' That's a perverse mind."

The GIngerbread Man

No one can catch The Gingerbread Man when it comes to being weird.

The little dough guy with the high voice is back -- and this time his broken cookie leg has been repaired thanks to "yeast cell" research.

His main weak point? The precious gumdrop buttons that he can't stand to lose.

Conrad Vernon, co-director of "Shrek 2," provided the voice himself -- something he borrowed from a comedy routine he created with a friend.

"We used to sit around and we came up with this character called 'Randall Candy: Nancy Boy,' one of those strange little boys who always stayed inside," Vernon said. "His dad would give him a baseball mitt and he'd use it to pull cakes out of his mini-bake oven."

In the first "Shrek," Vernon started doing the voice of Gingerbread Man so the animators would have something to work from, before a celebrity actor would take over the role.

He did it so well, he got to keep the part for the final movie.

"I just used that voice off the top of my head. He's a little tough guy, but ..." Vernon said, slipping into an ear-piercing falsetto. "He's got this little tiny voice."