Keanu Reeves Wasn't Exactly In Fighting Shape For The Matrix's Kung-Fu Training

Neo and the rest of the crew aboard the Nebuchadnezzar get beat up pretty good during their trips into and out of the Matrix. In fact, it's often hard to imagine just how they manage to keep fighting, let alone walking, after some of their more brutal fights with agents. Of course, we learn pretty quickly that if you die in the Matrix, you die in real life, so it's not like Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) are without any pain after getting their collective butts kicked, but you'd think there would be more limping and wincing involved around the ship during the crew's off hours. That's part of the magic of "The Matrix," though. It's a movie that defies expectations, giving viewers an edge-of-your-seat thriller that bends the mind just as much as Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) bends bodies. 

Directed by the Wachowskis, the first film in the franchise freed our minds in 1999. It's a gritty, cyberpunk story about a computer hacker who just might be the one (ahaha!) to save humanity from living imprisoned, fake lives inside an elaborate and extremely realistic computer program called The Matrix. At the time of its release, the film excited audiences everywhere, and nearly everyone has tried, at least once, to replicate Neo's (Keanu Reeves) bullet-dodging backbend with varying results. The movie is full of moments like that, scenes where Reeves had to really commit to some intense physicality in order to convince viewers of his character's power. The scene where Morpheus teaches Neo kung-fu is one of the most grueling examples of this, and though Neo seems to bounce back from injury relatively quickly, Reeves' body in real life wasn't quite as easygoing.

When Keanu Reeves started to train to become The One, he wasn't exactly in the most promising shape. In fact, an article for Entertainment Weekly details how the actor was actually only a few weeks out from having had surgery on a herniated disc. Because of this, he was limited with what he was able to physically accomplish in training, which was no doubt made all the more obvious by the neck brace he had to initially wear. 

Despite his injury, he participated in intense training for the film, but according to a Vulture article, there were some limitations to what he was able to initially do. For example, kicking was off the table and was only able to be added back in once the film was already well underway. Vulture explains how this meant that much of the movie's action needed to happen towards the end of the shoot "to help facilitate [Reeves'] recovery." 

It's hard to imagine Neo being able to accomplish anything heroic while wearing a neck brace, so it's extremely impressive that Reeves managed to get through the grueling training process in less-than-optimal shape. Unlike Neo, there was no sparring program for Reeves to casually plug himself into in order to learn a new skill. But his injury wasn't the only one on set. Both Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving suffered their own problems as well — Weaving hurt his hip and his wrist and broke two ribs and Moss sprained her ankle — proving that life both in and out of the Matrix wasn't exactly easy. Thankfully though, all three actors recovered and were able to go on to film one of the most important movies of the (almost) 21st century.