And Keanu says something really interesting to me on the first John Wick. He comes to me and he goes, “Look, just so you know, little bit of advice, when you edit, once a week, you should see the edit on the big screen.” And I’m like, OK, we’ll try. Later, alone with him, I’m going, “Well, why?” He’s like, “I’m a big-screen actor.” And I had no fucking idea what that meant. I thought it meant a movie star. And he’s like, “No, no, no, no.”
And he started talking to me about non-verbal acting, like gestures, motions. And he’s like, “Look, when you see me on a little monitor and I give this little look, it’s one thing. But when you see it on a 40-foot screen, that look’s going to say a lot. That’s what I want to play this guy as. So just please be aware of it, so when we punch in on the closeups, it’s going to mean something.” And it kind of really clicked for me right there.
I’ve always been fascinated by non-verbal gesture, body language. Keanu would go through and strip his dialogue down. It was like, “No, no, nope. I’m just going to cuddle the puppy.” In the first John Wick, he doesn’t talk for 32 minutes. Try to sell that one to a studio: You have Keanu Reeves and you’re not going to let him talk.
Chad Stahelski on what the John Wick movies owe to Buster Keaton
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You’ve got to remember, at the time, The Matrix hadn’t come out yet. So martial arts in American cinema was looked down upon. As a stunt person, you made your money falling or driving or doing a stair fall or fire burns. Anything but martial arts.
The Matrix comes out. I get a gig doubling Keanu after I turn it down a few times. I was one of the few six-foot-one guys out there that had a gymnastic, martial-arts background. Next thing you know, I’m doubling Keanu Reeves on The Matrix. And who’s doing The Matrix? Yuen Woo-ping himself, the greatest fight choreographer alive today and probably that’s ever been around, and now I’m learning with his team for the next 10 years. And through that time, I’m working with Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and being introduced to the best of the best in the industry. And you start talking to Jackie Chan a little bit, and who’s one of his biggest influences? Buster Keaton.
Chad Stahelski on what the John Wick movies owe to Buster Keaton
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When you realise that
In Akira's introduction she was bathed in blue lights
And in John's first scene in Osaka, he was bathed in red lights
Then in their last scene on the train, the lighting flickers between blue and red
Gosh, I love this movie to bits 😫❤️
Tagging @evren-sadwrn <3
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John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
Chad Stahelski
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