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The Matrix profoundly changed Keanu Reeves’ life and that fact certainly isn’t lost on the beloved actor.
During a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to promote his first novel called The Book of Elsewhere, Keanu Reeves got emotional when detailing what The Matrix means to him a quarter of a century later.
“The Matrix changed my life, and then over these years, it’s changed so many other people’s lives in really positive and great ways,” Reeves said to Colbert. “As an artist, you hope for that when you get to do a film or tell a story.”
“So when you say these years, the amount of people that I have met who have said to me and been touched by The Matrix in such a positive way… It’s the best.”
Reeves famously almost never even played Neo as the part was first offered to Will Smith, who turned it down and instead starred in the infamous bomb Wild Wild West.
In a career full of defining action performances — Point Break, Speed, John Wick, etc. — The Matrix franchise is arguably Reeves’ seminal work as it has permeated the culture in a way that very few films do.
Since debuting as Neo in 1999’s The Matrix, Reeves has gone on to play the character in three other films: The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions in 2003 and The Matrix Resurrections in 2021.
As for Reeves’ new novel The Book of Elsewhere, which was co-written by author China Miéville, the story follows an immortal warrior named B who wishes to die.
“In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own,” the book’s official description reads.
The Book of Elsewhere was published on Tuesday, July 23, and is now available for purchase.