Keanu Reeves revisits his time on TheMatrix, revealing he hid major injuries to not lose out on the role.
Keanu Reeves has been taking a trip down memory lane on The Art of Action podcast with his John Wick: Chapter 4 co-star Scott Adkins, with the pair convening over Zoom for a lengthy retrospective on Reeves' career in action. The pair discussed Reeves' early career touchstones like his work on Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break, and Jan de Bont's Speed, offering insight into his initial foray in the action world.
Taking on the role of Neo, the man-who-would-be-God of the virtual world, required Reeves to train harder and more intensely than ever before, but years of bumps and bruises had taken their toll, leaving Reeves – who was smitten with the story and the demands put upon him by the directors, The Wachowskis – in a difficult spot where he wouldn't be able to take the part without some serious intervention. The catch - nobody could know.
COLLIDER VIDEO OF THE DAY SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT I met with the Wachowskis and I loved the script, and they showed me pre-vis for bullet time which was extraordinary, and one of the things they talked about in the meeting was training in Hong Kong-style martial arts and asked if I was okay with that, and that it was over four months and I was like “yeah, that sounds okay”.
And so I said yes to The Matrix and the four months of training, but it was pretty bad so I went to a neck doctor, and basically I had spinal stenosis too. My spinal column was being sausaged basically, so I had to have a two level fusion on my spine before training, and they put a plate in my neck. But I never actually told anyone because I didn’t want to tell anyone I wouldn’t be able to do the film. What was cool though was at the time the way to recover from spinal surgery was different.
Two and a half decades on, he continues to kick ass on-screen and win hearts off-screen. Long may that continue. Check out Reeves chatting with Collider about John Wick down below.
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