Keanu Reeves and what a clause in his contracts prevents: “It’s scary”

Keanu Reeves never fails to impress. Neo’s actor matrix; of Jonathan Harker’s Horterón dracula by Francis Ford Coppola, by john wickof they call him Bodhi —it is not necessary to continue, right?—, it is a real box of surprises. In addition to conducting his acting career with enviable freedom and indifference, over time we have discovered that Reeves also has several businesses with little to do with the world of Hollywood, who has been married to Winona Ryder for 30 years… If you ask this humble man editor, he will even tell you that Keanu Reeves stars in one of the best interviews of the history of journalism. And the latest delicious actor oddity we’ve come across isn’t far off: Reeves includes an untouchable clause in all of his contracts. You would never guess what he regulates.

Despite being a violent and undaunted action hero, Keanu Reeves is terrified of one thing: deepfakes. Yes, that digital image editing technology that allows, among other things, to modify, rejuvenate or change the faces of the people that appear on a screen. Reeves is particularly afraid of the negative effects that tools of this type may have on the acting profession. For this reason, in the contracts of each and every one of the films in which he appears, he shields one condition: it is strictly forbidden to digitally manipulate his interpretations.

This was revealed by the actor in an interview with Wiredwhile promoting the upcoming premiere of john wick 4. “I don’t care if someone takes a blink from me in the editing process, but way back in the early 2000s, or maybe the 90s, they changed a performance for me,” recalls Keanu Reeves. “They added a tear to my face, and it was like: I don’t even need to be here anymore”.

“The frustrating thing about this is that we lose our agency. When you act in a movie, you know you’re going to be edited, but you’re participating in it. If you enter the land of deepfakes, it no longer has anything to do with your views. That’s scary,” laments Reeves. “It’s going to be interesting to see how humans deal with these technologies. They are having important cultural and sociological effects for the study of the species. There is a lot of data on behavior now.”

These fears do not come from anywhere. Apparently the actor matrix he had a revelation while discussing with a 15-year-old teenager about the Wachowski sisters’ movie that established their stardom in 1999. Neo, Keanu told the fifteen-year-old, fights for what is real. However, the young man’s response threw him off: Who cares what’s real and what’s not? “There are people who are growing up with these tools,” Reeves explains. “We listen to music made by artificial intelligences in the style of Nirvana, there is digital art and NFT… Everything is like: See what cute machines can do. But there is a corporatocracy behind all of this that wants to control things. Culturally and socially, we are going to see ourselves confronted with the value, or non-value, of the real. Then what?”.

Keanu Reeves, who opens his fourth role as assassin John Wick in theaters on March 24, has never sounded so depressing. “It is show. A control and manipulation system. We are on our knees, looking at the cavern walls and seeing the shadows cast, but we are not able to see what is behind us.