Keanu Reeves is one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Starting out with theatre productions and television shows, Reeves transitioned into film roles where he achieved great success. However, he met with a professional slump somewhere around the year 2008.
He made a smashing comeback as the titular assassin in the ‘John Wick‘ franchise. The films in the series have been critical and commercial hits and are known for their action sequences. This sparks the question of whether Reeves did his own stunts in these films or not. Let’s find out.
Related: Keanu Reeves Removes Around Half Of His Dialogues From John Wick 4
Keanu Reeves And The Stunts In ‘John Wick’ Franchise
Keanu Reeves has been playing the titular assassin in the ‘John Wick‘ franchise for nearly a decade now. The films are filled with several death-defying stunts and beautifully choreographed fight sequences.
For the first two films, Reeves said he did between 90 and 95 percent of all stunts. In an interview with Jake’s Takes, director Chad Stahelski talks about deciding which scene requires a stunt double.
“It depends on my gauging of you, if I think you’re a capable human and you’re comfortable with it, that no longer becomes a stunt, it’s a special ability,” he said. The film has popularized gun-fu, which is a mixture of kung-fu and firearm combat.
Reeves trained for three months to prepare for the fourth installment of the franchise, he called it “the hardest physical role I’ve ever had in my career so far.” Stahelski said that Reeves does all the martial arts and driving stunts himself.
In case you missed: John Wick: Chapter 4: Is Keanu Reeves Return A Step Up In The Franchise?
Reeves Removed Nearly Half Of His Dialogues From The Film
As the franchise has progressed, Reeves’ character has been speaking lesser words than before. In the fourth installment, he only says 380 words across 103 lines of dialogue. The film’s duration is 169 minutes, which clocks around three hours.
In the first film, he says 484 words in a 101-minute-long feature. The actor along with the director Chad Stahelski “stripped out roughly half the dialogue written for his character in the initial script.”
Wick’s longest dialogue in the film is a single sentence that he tells his friend Shimazu Koji. “You and I left a good life behind a long time ago, my friend.”
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