Keanu Reeves Was Suffering From A Spinal Injury While Auditioning For The Matrix, Which He Hid For Signing The Film & Said, “My Spinal Column Was Being Sausaged”
Hollywood Star Keanu Reeves in a podcast interview shared how he did not want to let go of The Matrix despite a serious spinal injury
Keanu Reeves Reveals He Hid His Spinal Injury So That He Won’t Lose Out On The Matrix ( Photo Credit – Wikimedia ; The Matrix Poster )
Advertisement
With John Wick 4 performing extremely well at the global box-office, Keanu Reeves has proven himself to be an ultimate action star yet again. Apart from the John Wick series, the humble Hollywood star is also known for his role as Neo in The Matrix movies. Keanu in a recent podcast opened up about the sci-fi actioner while also revealing an interesting fact. Read on to know more.
Keanu Reeves also worked in action movies like Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break, and Jan de Bont’s Speed. In his recent podcast interview, Reeves gave an insight into the action world in movies.
According to the publication Collider, Keanu Reeves in The Art of Action podcast with his John Wick: Chapter 4 co-star Scott Adkins revealed how he hid his spinal injury so that he did not lose The Matrix. During the podcast, Reeves, shared, “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’.” The actor added, “The only problem- I was dealing with a neck issue which was getting worse, I’d spent a couple of years fighting it off, I was getting tingling.”
Keanu Reeves further shared, “I had done a film called Chain Reaction in Chicago and had a couple epidurals put in, shot up in the spine. I had a bulging disc and I had a fractured disc too, and I started losing feeling and balance. 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.”
Keanu Reeves continued, “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.”
The actor added, “What was cool though was at the time the way to recover from spinal surgery was different. They put the plate in my neck and told me to start moving right away. I had to train for the Matrix in a neck brace.”
The Matrix ultimately proved to be one of the biggest box-office spectacles leading to 3 more sequels, video games, and graphic novels.
