Will Smith has given life to many memorable roles in the film industry. Comedy, action, romance, and biopics, there is no genre that the actor has not blessed with his acting skills. But whatever it be there is a major regret for Will Smith. That is the role he lost to Keanu Reeves- as Neo in ‘The Matrix‘.
Turning down The Wachowski’s offer, Will Smith had admitted to be one of the biggest regrets for the actor in his career. And this is the reason why the actor turned down this iconic role. In one of his earlier YouTube videos, the actor shared how he had been left confused by the pitch and vision that the creators had.
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Why Will Smith Rejected ‘The Matrix’
In 1998, Will Smith was approached by the creators of ‘The Matrix’ to take up the lead role in the movie. “So after we made ‘Men in Black’, the Wachowskis came in and they had only done one movie. I think that movie was called ‘Bound‘. And they came in and made a pitch for ‘The Matrix’. And as it turns out, they’re geniuses! But there’s a fine line in a pitch meeting between genius and what I experienced in the meeting,” the actor said in his YouTube video, out in 2019.
The ‘Men In Black’ actor had been enjoying the success of ‘Independence Day’ when the movies ‘Men In Black’ and ‘The Matrix’ had come to him. However, the actor was not ready to be part of another alien or technology-related movie.
“We’re thinking like… imagine you’re in a fight. You, like, jump. Imagine if you could stop jumping in the middle of the jump. But then, people could see around you 360 degrees while you stop jumping. We’re going to invent these cameras and then people can see the whole jump when you stop in the middle of the jump,” the creators had shared their idea of a shot. ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ actor shared that the movie was ‘hard to pitch’. And he also admitted that he only got the movie once he saw it.
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Will Smith Says He Would Have Messed ‘The Matrix’
Surely Will Smith regrets letting go of Neo. But he feels the cast to be perfect. “Keanu was perfect, Laurence Fishburne was perfect,” the actor said in his YouTube video. The actress also confessed how Val Kilmer would have been Morpheus if he had been Neo.“So I probably would have messed ‘The Matrix’ up. I would have ruined it, so I did y’all a favor,” the actor added.
The 54-year-old in ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert‘ also admitted his mistake of rejecting the role of Neo. Asked what he would tell his younger self, the Academy Award winner said, “I just thought of something I would tell myself. I would go, ‘Hey man, don’t do Wild Wild West.’ I would say, ‘Dude, do Neo! Do Neo!’ ‘Cause I got offered The Matrix“. In addition, the star is also not proud of his role in ‘Wild Wild West‘.
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