How actor Keanu Reeves created his character

In theaters since yesterday, French viewers were able to discover the new part of the series John Wick, directed by Chad Stahelski. Keanu Reeves embodies John Wick, a retired hitman, chaining incredible situations through the episodes. For this fourth part, the famous character faces a new enemy to regain his freedom through several cities, including Paris. For this film, as for all those that preceded it, the actor had to “to project oneself emotionally” from the beginning of the saga.

The incarnation of a character in its infancy

During the first installment of John Wick released in 2014, Keanu Reeves worked in portraying and creating the main character. “It started with the first film in which you simply meet a man who mourns his wife. I had to project myself into it emotionally”. Then comes the idea of ​​the costume, like armor, with which he maintains a “ambivalent relationship. He tries to take it off but he comes back”. For the actor, putting himself in the shoes of his character begins upstream, during his preparation. “See the suit, put it on, put on the shoes, the watch. All of this sets you up. It prepares your body, your state of mind”. His haircut is also an ingredient that brings “intensity” during action scenes. “Chad (the director) likes them because they move a lot”.

A preparation that he does not differentiate from one film to another

If actor Keanu Reeves is known for many roles in action movies, Matrix And Johnny Mnemonic to name a few, his career was more into independent films before John Wick. “I love indie movies and I always see John Wick as an indie movie character, in spirit”. He notably starred in The Bad Batch, Always Be My Maybe or The Neon Demon and those, even after incarnating John Wick. In this type of feature film, he claims to prepare in the same way in the construction of his character. But the shape is different: “In action films, there is also the fact of expressing things through movement, this is what Harrison Ford called “the physical game”. With Chad Stahelski, in the John Wick series, I can show through action his desperation, his will”.