Apparently everyone is only interested in Keanu Reeves’ beard anyway, so we saved the rest of the face! Image source: Lionsgate
Keanu Reeves is famous breathtaking
. But even the Hollywood actor, who is considered good-natured and generous, is not immune from causing irritation from time to time. This happened, for example, during the filming of the first John Wick film.
The beard stays hard
The first John Wick is celebrating its tenth birthday these days. The later action hit celebrated its premiere in September 2014 at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.
To mark this anniversary, the two directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch are with us Business Insider talked about the making of the first film. They revealed a strange story: Keanu Reeves’ beard caused trouble!
[…] We tried to make a modern fantasy film with Greek mythology. That’s not mainstream. So we wanted to do something cool with Keanu. But the financiers wanted to see fucking Keanu Reeves. […] And I don’t know if this still exists today, but back then we were told by those in charge that you don’t cover your lead actor’s face with a beard. He has to be clean shaven for international films!
That’s the classic studio saying.
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Despite these demands, those responsible on set persisted in their vision. According to Chad Stahelski, this meant the team had to a lot of sh…s
endure. And still: They did their thing and were proven right:
We felt we couldn’t be fired, so Keanu showed up on the first day of filming with a beard. And later in the week, when they saw the daytime footage with cinematographer Jonathan Sela’s now-famous low-light shots, people were pretty darn thrilled.
The dog… oh, the dog…
Also about the thing with the dog… oh, sorry, we can’t type right now because the tears are streaming into our eyes again. You know what it’s about anyway!
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Nun, Stahelski and Leitch also fought hard for this cruel story decision and have to assert themselves against the doubters in Hollywood:
We were told: “It’s bad luck, you can’t do that!” “No one will want to see it on the screen […]” And I said, “We’re going to execute people at close range; Killing the dog is one thing, but what about the brutal massacre of all those human beings? […]
Over the next few weeks it was suggested to us that we film an alternative ending that shows the puppy isn’t actually dead. But Keanu stood up for us. … thought at some point [die Geldgeber] himself: Screw it, let’s see what the boys can do.
The rest is history: The first John Wick hit like a bomb and was the birth of a film series that is still popular today and will be continued next year with the spin-off Ballerina. The film takes place between John Wick 3 and 4 and so it’s not out of the question that we’ll see Keanu Reeves in his iconic role again.
