Say, are you familiar with The Matrix? The beloved action sci-fi epic is getting a hotly anticipated sequel this year, The Matrix Resurrections, from original co-director Lana Wachowski and returning stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, alongside a cast of new faces.
One of these new faces is Jessica Henwick, who's playing Bugs, a mysterious new figure that boasts a white rabbit tattoo that might be the key to getting an aged, seemingly forgetful Neo (Reeves) to re-find his destiny. Our own Christina Radish recently spoke with Henwick for her Adult Swim anime series Blade Runner: Black Lotus, and Henwick teased The Matrix 4's intense action training alongside Wachowski's unorthodox shooting style. Ready to see how far the rabbit hole goes?
As you might imagine, The Matrix Resurrections is going to boast some intense, imaginative action sequences, and Henwick felt the pressure for stepping into this legacy of game-changing action cinema. She talked about her intense training regimen — and the COVID shutdown that happened in the middle, nearly stopping production completely:
"That's somewhere I felt pressure because those fights are so seminal [to The Matrix]. Those moments from the original have stayed in my head, so many of those fight beats, [so] that was really where I was intimidated going into it. I knew I had to be performing up here. You're performing with Keanu. It's John Wick. He knows what he's doing. You can't hold him back, in any way. I had to give it my all. I devoted myself to it. We trained pretty hard in the run-up and we kept training all the way through filming. When we were shut down for COVID and we went off three months, I still was at home training every day, even though we didn't know if we were going back. When we got shut down for COVID, Lana said, 'Well, maybe that's it. Maybe we won't come back and film the rest of it. Maybe the new Matrix will go down as this legendary film which incomplete, and no one will ever be able to see it. Maybe that's what this is meant to be.' And we were all going, 'No, you have to finish the film.' But she really did toy with the idea of just calling it quits... For me, even though I didn't know whether we would come back, I couldn't think about that, and so I trained throughout the entire break because I just had to focus. I just had to be positive and go, 'No, we're gonna go finish the film. We have to. This can't be how my Matrix journey ends.'"
Luckily for all of us, Henwick's Matrix journey did not end there, as the team finished their production (and we're all gonna get to see it soon!). As for the production itself, Henwick told us all about Wachowski's unorthodox directing style, a process that you had to either give yourself over to completely or get out of the way.
"[Wachowski is] very creative, and she has a very, very strong vision. She doesn't work like any of the directors I've worked with. She loves running takes, so we'll often go 20 minutes without a single cut. And she doesn't do the normal thing, which is, 'Okay, let's set up for shooting A side, and we'll shoot the wide, the medium, the closeup, and then we can all move the lights so that we can shoot B side.' Everyone had to be aware that it was 360 [degrees of coverage] at all times. She would stand next to the operator and she would be shooting. Keanu is speaking and she's shooting. She's handling the camera, zooming in on him, and then she would just turn, and suddenly the camera will be on you, even though you're on the other side of the line. That's how she shoots. It's very much how she feels in the moment. It's very instinctive for her. It's fascinating to watch. I've never worked with a director who is going so much on a gut feeling.
I auditioned with her, so by the time I got to set, I already knew, 'Okay, she's gonna be like this.' She's gonna talk in the middle of your line. The things which might annoy you on another project, you just have to accept with her. You may be in the middle of your line and she'll just turn the camera off of you because she decides, 'Actually, I don't wanna film you. I wanna film this for a second.' She was like that in my audition process; I think she even pushed it more in the audition process, to see how I would react. If you can't be flexible with a director like that, then there's no point working together. You're not gonna enjoy working together. She really wanted to make sure that every actor was just present and there, at all times, and ready to go."
This sounds like an intriguing, exciting way to shoot a big-budget action blockbuster, one that will likely yield a film unlike its contemporaries in any way. But that doesn't mean the foundations of The Matrix have gone out the window: Henwick went on to say that we should all be excited "to get to see Keanu. We love him. We love him as Neo. He's amazing. He is the beating heart of the film and he can do no wrong. So, I think fans are really gonna enjoy that. Carrie-Anne has a really interesting role in this film and I think a lot of people are gonna be happy with her work. That's really what I'm excited to see."
As for the truly exciting thing about the picture — Henwick's dope AF blue hair — she told us punnily that "it took a while to grow on me, but I'm really pleased with it. It looks great on camera. It's a bit of a nightmare, in real life, to keep it looking blue." Sometimes ya gotta suffer for your art!
The Matrix Resurrections comes to theaters and HBO Max on December 22, 2021. Be on the lookout for our full interview with Henwick soon.