Jonathon Groff had to smash Keanu Reeves’ face into a wall in ‘The Matrix Resurrections’

For a lot of cinemagoers and avid followers of the entertainment industry, this holiday season marks the return of one of the most popular movie franchises of all time.

The Matrix Resurrections will serve as the fourth entry in The Matrix sci-fi universe, bringing back Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss in their respective roles as Neo and Trinity. The film will also provide something of a clean slate for the narrative, a soft reboot, with Neo once again finding himself in the artificially constructed world of the simulation and a version of Morpheus (this time played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen) offering him the red pill to change his life.

Of course, what distinguishes The Matrix from many sci-fi franchises in the history of cinema is its extensive and brilliant utilization of action sequences to bolster the plot. And apparently, The Matrix Resurrections will prove to be no exception to this rule.

In a recent chat with Entertainment Weekly, actor Jonathon Groff, known for his portrayal of King George in the widely acclaimed Hamilton musical, talked about one of his action scenes in the movie where he fights Neo, highlighting the “love” and “respect” that mutually goes into making these sequences, especially when it involves smashing Keanu Reeves’ face into a wall.

“Lana’s like, ‘If you could do an open palm and put your finger right underneath Keanu’s eyeball and then smash his face into the wall, that would be great for [the] camera.’ I look at Keanu and he just gave me the nod, like, ‘Go for it.’ And the trust! I mean, I have to spin in a circle, slap my hand on his face, and then smash it into the thing. I feel like there’s so much love and respect that is swapped in those moments.”

Groff further explained that making such intimate scenes of a more violent nature makes you feel you’re “deeply connected” to your co-star, saying:

He taught me so much about the agreement of two people to hit each other but not hurt each other. It’s like making love with someone. When our fight was over, I felt deeply connected to him in a physical way.

There are fight scenes, and then there are fight scenes. I suppose getting to hit Keanu Reeves in the face is an altogether different thing to process. At any rate, I guess we’ll get to see the aforementioned fight sequence for ourselves when The Matrix Resurrections releases on December 22.