Yahoo Lifestyle ‘John Wick’ Directors Fought Financiers Over Keanu Reeves’ Beard and ‘Caught S—‘ for Not Shaving It; They Were Told ‘He Needs to Be Clean-Shaven for International’
“John Wick” directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch marked the 10th anniversary of their action movie by speaking to Business Insider about the various battles they had to overcome in order to launch the Keanu Reeves-led franchise. One of the most surprising arguments centered on the actor’s beard, as the financiers of “John Wick” preferred the star to be clean shaven like his famous turns in “Point Break,” “Speed” and “The Matrix.”
“Absolutely. We were trying to do a modern-day Greek mythology fantasy movie. That’s not mainstream. So we wanted to do something cool with Keanu,” Stahelski said about the beard. “But the money people, they wanted to see Keanu fucking Reeves. ‘Point Break’ Keanu, ‘Speed’ Keanu. And I don’t know if this exists anymore, but at the time we were told by the powers that be you don’t cover up your leading man’s face with a beard.”
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“I don’t want to get into it, but since then I have had contentious conversations about stars having facial hair. ‘He needs to be clean-shaven for international!’ That’s the classic studio line,” Leitch added.
Stahelski said the team “caught a lot of shit” for refusing to have Reeves shave, a choice that stemmed from the filmmakers wanting people to view the character not as the Reeves action heroes they were familiar with from his previous movies.
“We felt you can’t fire us, so first day of shooting, we had Keanu in the beard, and later that week, when they watched the dailies, with cinematographer Jonathan Sela’s now famous half-light shots, people fucking loved it,” Stahelski remembered.
Reeves’ beard stayed and became one of the signature components of John Wick’s look. Another thing that stayed in the movie was the death of John’s dog, which kicks off the entire saga of the action franchise.
“We were told, ‘It’s bad luck.’ ‘It’s bad juju.’ ‘It’s ‘Old Yeller,’ you can’t do this!’ ‘No one will want to see this on screen; you’re going to alienate the audience,'” Leitch remembered, “And I’m like, ‘We’re going to execute people at close range; killing the dog is one thing, but what about the brutal massacre of all these human beings? Are they going to be able to accept that?’ … They didn’t understand that we were making a genre movie. We are genre fans to the core, and we know those hard-boiled moments are what make memorable moments.”
Stahelski added, “For the next couple of weeks it was suggested that we shoot an alternative ending revealing that the puppy actually isn’t dead. But Keanu stood up for us. … Eventually, they just felt, ‘Fuck it, let’s see what these guys can do.'”
Head over to Business Insider’s website to read for from Stahelski and Leitch about the 10th anniversary of “John Wick.”
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