Keanu Reeves’ eyes lit up as he spoke about performing his own stunts on The Matrix Resurrections, the fourth film in the iconic science-fiction action franchise. In an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Reeves giddily described jumping off a 46-story building around 20 times as the cast and crew, led by director Lana Wachowski, chased the perfect light.
Colbert noted that Reeves is known for performing his own stunts, and asked him what the craziest stunt he'd done for the Matrix movies was. Reeves said:
"Jump off a building... I'm gonna guess around 46 storeys. It's The Matrix and it's Lana Wachowski, and you need natural light and you want to do it real. I mean there's wires. So, Carrie and I grab hands and we leapt off a building. We did it around 19, 20 times.”
As the studio audience oohed and aahed, Reeves went on to describe what it feels like to stare into the abyss. He continued:
"By the time you get there, my heart rate was a little raised. But then, after the first time, you can't think of the fear. You have to deal with it, absorb it, and then just be there and do … and that's what we did. And it was awesome! Can you imagine leaping off of a building?”
The stunt that the actor was referring to was filmed in San Francisco in 2020. Footage shot by fans was later posted online. It showed Reeves and his co-star Carrie-Anne Moss jumping off a skyscraper, exactly how he described. They were wearing harnesses and didn’t let go of each other’s hands as they went through the motions of jumping off the building, being pulled up by the wires, and repositioned at the edge for another take.
When Colbert asked Reeves if he had ever bungee jumped, the actor shot back, “No, because I’m scared of that. I don’t want to do that.”
Reeves, Moss, and a bunch of stars both old and new will appear in The Matrix Resurrections, which debuts day-and-date in theaters and on the HBO Max streaming service on December 22. It is the final film in Warner Bros’ controversial 2021 release strategy to get a hybrid release such as this. It is, however, the first film in the franchise to be solely directed by Lana, who had collaborated on the three previous installments with her sister, Lilly Wachowski.
Co-starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Andrew Caldwell, Priyanka Chopra, Jonathan Groff, Jessica Henwick, Ellen Hollman, Eréndire Ibarra, Toby Onwumere, Christina Ricci, Max Riemelt, and Brian J. Smith and others, The Matrix Resurrections is co-written by Wachowski, David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon. You can watch the original interview here, and read the official synopsis down below:
In a world of two realities–everyday life and what lies behind it–Thomas Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more. Choice, while an illusion, is still the only way in or out of the Matrix, which is stronger, more secure and more dangerous than ever before.