Keanu Reeves is jet-lagged. The 57-yr-old Hollywood lifer has just arrived in Los Angeles immediately after a flight from Jordan, in which he was filming the fourth John Wick, a punishing franchise not particularly identified for its leisurely rate. He hasn’t been residence in eight months, but instead of sleeping it off, he is at a photograph shoot. Exhaustion sets in. He buries his eyes in his palms, hoping to rub life back into his strained pupils right after the steady pop, pop, pop of the camera’s flash.
Getting his image taken won’t rank substantial on Reeves’ record of preferred points. It in no way has. But he looks up and smiles when a pair of comforting palms relaxation on his shoulders: They belong to Carrie-Anne Moss, his longtime costar from the Matrix films, positioning herself driving him for the shot. You will find an relieve in between them that comes from 20-furthermore years of friendship — a friendship that commenced in the late ’90s when the pair achieved on the style-redefining sci-fi film that turned out to be so influential, it solitary-handedly launched phrases like “glitch in the Matrix” and “red-pilling” to the pop culture lexicon.
Moss calls their link easy. “We’ve been as a result of this working experience with each other as partners,” claims the actress, 54. “The only way I can explain it is like a soul friendship.” Their unique bond created 1999’s The Matrix what it is today, and The Matrix, in convert, transformed the course of moviemaking on the eve of a new millennium.
That initial film, encouraged by then-geekier genres like cyberpunk and anime, envisioned a grim long run in which our globe, unbeknownst to us, experienced been taken around by equipment: Working with a simulated actuality, artificial intelligence keeps people docile plenty of to harvest for energy. At the middle of this brainy large strategy was Reeves’ Neo, a bored workplace employee moonlighting as a personal computer hacker who escapes the simulation, and Moss’ Trinity, a lady from the authentic environment with the capacity to jack into the Matrix — not to mention a talent for executing gravity-defying overcome moves though clad in slick black leather-based.
Immediately after all these several years, neither star would’ve guessed that they’d be again with each other conversing about still a further sequel, The Matrix Resurrections, which lands in theaters and on HBO Max Dec. 22. How could they? Sibling directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski, the architects of the franchise, had been agency in their take care of that the initial three installments would provide as a full trilogy, definitively ending in 2003 with The Matrix Revolutions… and (two-ten years-outdated spoiler notify!) with the two Neo and Trinity dying at the stop.
When requested why he agreed to return to the series following a approximately two-10 years hiatus, Reeves delivers a pretty uncomplicated clarification: “We experienced filmmakers who you wanted to say of course to,” he says. Plus, he adds, “[we had] materials that you wanted to dedicate to, to give all the things that you could to.”
The genuine journey to Resurrections, on the other hand, was a minor more complex than that. At a Berlin screenwriting panel again in September, Lana reported that each and every year, Warner Bros. would question her and Lilly to make another Matrix movie, but they usually declined. In 2017, screenwriter Zak Penn (X-Gentlemen: The Past Stand, The Avengers) disclosed that he was performing on undisclosed Matrix assignments without the involvement of the Wachowskis, who experienced stepped absent from aspect filmmaking following the disastrous reception to 2015’s Jupiter Ascending. Lilly told The Hollywood Reporter in 2020 that corporate interference on her films pushed her to a “breaking stage.” As an alternative of continuing her collaboration with Lana, she mentioned that she essential to “reconnect” with herself as an artist by likely again to university and performing on other initiatives.
“The Matrix was a groundbreaking film and offering that legacy to a person else I assume [would have been a] horrendous blunder,” suggests Jada Pinkett Smith, returning for Resurrections as her character Niobe from the initially two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
For Lana, it was a collection of tragic, existence-altering events that inevitably adjusted her mind: the loss of life of her parents and a near friend. “I didn’t truly know how to procedure that form of grief,” she claimed at the Berlin panel. “I hadn’t knowledgeable it that intently.” The Matrix‘s characters gave her ease and comfort: “I could not have my mother and dad, nonetheless quickly I experienced Neo and Trinity, arguably the two most significant people in my life.”
Profound private transform has often been central to the Matrix universe. The Wachowskis came out as trans and underwent gender reassignment surgical procedures in the a long time because Reloaded and Revolutions both equally strike theaters in 2003. This awakening may possibly have been an unspoken section of The Matrix considering the fact that the beginning Reeves remembers an early draft of the authentic script that highlighted a character who entered the Matrix earth as a different sex. “I consider the studio was not all set for that,” he claims.
“Technology paradoxically brought us nearer collectively although also isolating or inculcating us from every single other,” Lana Wachowski, 56, writes to EW. (In a very Matrix-like go, the director did not sit for an job interview, preferring to communicate through electronic mail.) “The power of technology to trap or limit our subjective reality was an critical part of the new narrative for Matrix Resurrections.” She clarifies that “the story [for Resurrections] exploded relatively entirely fashioned” from her intellect. Neo and Trinity are seemingly alive and properly, but their minds are locked away inside of the Matrix, which has come to be much more dangerous. They have no obvious memory of their past, nonetheless Neo is haunted by it. He sees flashes of what transpired in the previous movies in his dreams, in what he thinks is each day daily life.
That lifetime now contains Bugs (Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ Jessica Henwick), a blue-haired gunslinger with a white rabbit tattoo. When she crosses Neo’s path, we get much more clues about just why Lana felt so compelled to return to The Matrix. (There is also a fairly meta procedure of that really question in the movie.) “Art is a mirror,” Wachowski writes. “Most will favor to gaze at the floor but there will be folks like me who get pleasure from what lies powering the searching glass. I created this movie for them.”
Henwick, 29, claims “a new tone” and “a new look” that will make Resurrections far more lively and “joyous.” Reeves, far too, was “struck by how a great deal humor is in it” — but that won’t imply Neo will be cracking quips like Tony Stark. “It’s throwing down the Matrix gauntlet once more it truly is tremendous intelligent, clever, entertaining, suspenseful, and humorous,” he suggests. Adds Watchmen and Candyman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, 35, who plays Morpheus, a diverse version of Neo’s mentor originated by Laurence Fishburne: “Out of all of the sci-fi things that I’ve completed, Matrix is the 1 that is the most grounded in truth, ironically. There are all of the higher concepts encompassing The Matrix within our story, but definitely you can find so significantly heart and humanity that is driving this narrative.”
Emphasis on coronary heart. “Not that it necessary it,” says Reeves, “but absolutely the depth of why this film received designed is the feeling of it remaining a love tale amongst Trinity and Neo.” It was Lana’s deep connection to the people that resonated with her stars. Reeves remembers the dialogue when Lana very first explained to him about her plan for one more sequel. “It was a person of those cellular phone calls where by even though you happen to be at residence, you stand up,” he suggests.
For her element, Moss observed the new movie as a unusual “possibility to embody” Lana’s love. “I have by no means felt that way prior to, wherever I could see that I am an extension of her heart in participating in this position,” she claims. Adds Jonathan Groff (Frozen, Hamilton), 36, who performs a accommodate who could possibly be much more than he seems to be: “When I read through the script for this film I cried, simply because the notion of watching these two iconic actors in these two legendary sections coming back and battling to have their adore yet again just wrecked me.”
In the 22 several years considering that The Matrix very first hit theaters, audiences have never stopped wrestling with its themes — about breaking free from oppressive techniques and opening one’s head to concealed truths. Still, just one point that everybody can concur on is the innovative affect the collection has had on sci-fi tropes, particularly when it arrives to action scenes, and Resurrections doesn’t disappoint.
Filming commenced in February 2020, and the various cloak-and-dagger tries to hold 1 of the most anticipated productions in several years a secret didn’t really work out: Bystanders leaked on social media a scene that was shot in San Francisco in which Reeves and Moss stand at the edge of a creating additional than 40 flooring higher, swarmed by missile-launching helicopters, with no selection but to jump. In accordance to stunt coordinator Scott Rogers, who also worked with Reeves on the third and fourth installments of John Wick, Lana observed this sequence as a metaphor for the entire movie. “For her, the studio, the actors, most people,” he states, “you’re having this leap of faith.” Counters Reeves: “We have an extraordinary filmmaker, a visionary, these amazing roles with the kind of storytelling and concepts and advertising of thought. A leap of religion? We have a large amount of faith in that leap.”
Moss suggests she experienced “a great deal of road blocks to triumph over” just before she was able to do the scene. She sat down at a desk with her husband right before the shoot to explore it. “He is like, ‘You genuinely gonna do this?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, unquestionably. I do not know how I am heading to get there, but I know I’m likely to get there.'”
“If we’re there, it’s not a stunt,” jokes Reeves, indicating the stunt professionals are the types who actually do the hazardous stuff. “But Scott established up a problem in which we could do it. So, we did.” Moss acknowledges how her physical abilities have altered from 20 decades ago when she was filming shut-quarter overcome scenes with additional simplicity. It was about “respecting that time has handed, that my body’s had three youngsters,” she says. “But I also relished that problem.”
Henwick had her individual leap of faith to take. Best recognised for playing Nymeria Sand on Game of Thrones and Colleen Wing on Iron Fist, she was up for a position in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings at the exact time she was up for the purpose of Bugs. Both equally Disney and Warner Bros. realized about the other provide and gave her an ultimatum: She could audition for their film only if she forfeited the competing venture. Neither position was confirmed. “It was a pink-pill/blue-pill minute for me,” she suggests.
Henwick sees Bugs as “the audience’s eyes” into Resurrections, which is how one particular could possibly appear at all of the actors new to The Matrix. Abdul-Mateen credits Reeves for “pushing us and location the common” for the work. Groff concurs. “[Keanu] taught me so significantly about the agreement of two persons to hit each and every other, but not hurt each and every other,” the Broadway-skilled actor states. “When our battle was more than, I felt deeply linked to him in a actual physical way.” It really is not misplaced on Groff, who came out publicly as gay in 2009, that he’s included in this sort of an motion-major film when queer men and women have not largely been welcomed into that space. That’s a further testament to Wachowski, who introduced back several crew users from Perception8, a sequence that prominently featured LGBTQ stories, even though welcoming new faces into her inventive relatives.
To the two actors who know her best, Lana felt like a different director in some methods. Reeves remembers that on the initial trilogy, she was “far more at the rear of the watch” but “however hands-on.” With Resurrections, “she was collaborating extra with the movement of the camera, and much more interested in executing than rehearsing.” It was considerably less about prep and far more about everyone’s readiness to come across the unanticipated in the second. Reeves confesses they “barely rehearsed, if at all.”
In other strategies, functioning on Resurrections was like reuniting with an outdated good friend. As soon as Lana termed “Motion!” Moss suggests she went right back again to where she was with Reeves in the primary film. “Most of my scenes are with Keanu, and it was just a satisfaction to sit across from him and do that yet again,” she says, as she and Reeves sit side by side in matching director’s chairs. “He has a masterful comprehension of motion. I’ve viewed him grow in the past 20 years. I’m in awe of it.”
Reeves shakes his head back and forth as she speaks, silently protesting. “But you’ve got bought a taste,” he responds. “It can be Trinity! It is Carrie-Anne Moss, Trinity flavor. All the fierceness and mind, concentrate, motivation is there in the gestures. Untamed and wild and managed.”
Just after all these a long time, it truly is even now a flavor we can not get ample of. In advance of Moss and Reeves change into their upcoming outfits for the image shoot, they slip away, catching up on each and every other’s lives considering the fact that building Resurrections. They force by way of the studio’s again exit, flooding the darkened room with afternoon sunshine. Fans of the movies may well immediately consider of the door of gentle, a portal Neo would use to slip into the electronic “backdoor” of the Matrix. But that’s not really it. “They’re getting a cigarette break,” a crew member states. In this universe, even the most casual of exits seems awesome.
A version of this tale appears in Leisure Weekly‘s January problem, on newsstands Dec. 17 and available to order below. You should not forget about to subscribe for a lot more distinctive interviews and pictures, only in EW.
Motion course and photography by Dan Winters for EW. DP and Post-generation Alex Themistocleous Production: Michelle Stark Additional write-up-production: Ethan Bellows Design and style: Chuck Kerr Set design: Ed Murphy Reeves’ styling: Jeanne Yang/The Wall Team Hair: Nina Paskowitz Make-up: Geri Oppenheim Moss’ styling: Sydney Lopez/Two Management Hair: Sunnie Brook/Ahead Atists Make-up: Patti Dubroff/Ahead Artists. Address glimpse: Reeves: Jacket: Hermes Shirt: James Perse Moss: Gown: Jonathan Simkhai Earrings: Nouvel Heritage.
