Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

A friend mentioned that Will Smith turned down playing Neo in the matrix, and it was his biggest regret as an actor.

Anyway I went onto IMDb and sure enough it's true. I then watched the matrix, kind of imagining that Will smith was the lead instead of Keanu. I just didn't see it.

Would he have been a good neo? I felt like the lifeless "acting" of Keanu, if you like it or not, was pretty good for the part, and that maybe the movie was "lucky" Will ended up turning it down.
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Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

I'll be the first to say that I don't think the movie would do as well with two black male lead actors. Not in that genre and with that storyline.

Not that it wouldn't be a good movie, because even though I think Will Smith sucks he's better than Keanu Reeves, but purely because of demographic appeal and the willingness of the film's audience to accept a black guy as a Christ figure.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

I think just about any actor in Hollywood could have played Neo by dumbing down their acting. Keanu is naturally dumbed down. Keanu definitely didn't make the movie the success it was.

Keanu has been good only in the Bill & Ted series and Point Break.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I felt like the lifeless "acting" of Keanu, if you like it or not, was pretty good for the part, and that maybe the movie was "lucky" Will ended up turning it down.
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I agree completely. Not that I don't think Will Smith would do a bad job, but he's a very animated guy. Keanu's "I'm [censored] stoned out of my mind" acting style fit the role perfectly IMO.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I'll be the first to say that I don't think the movie would do as well with two black male lead actors. Not in that genre and with that storyline.

Not that it wouldn't be a good movie, because even though I think Will Smith sucks he's better than Keanu Reeves, but purely because of demographic appeal and the willingness of the film's audience to accept a black guy as a Christ figure.

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sad but true. however, i'm not sure a half asian is the prototypical christ figure either [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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I think just about any actor in Hollywood could have played Neo by dumbing down their acting. Keanu is naturally dumbed down. Keanu definitely didn't make the movie the success it was.

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this isn't true. will smith "dumbed down" doesn't sound very interesting at all. what i mean is he said he turned down the movie and he regrets it, but i feel like if he played the role like keanu did, it wouldn't fit his image, and if he played it like the will smith in other movies, it would have taken away from the grandness/mystique of the role.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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but i feel like if he played the role like keanu did, it wouldn't fit his image, and if he played it like the will smith in other movies, it would have taken away from the grandness/mystique of the role.

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Took the words out of my mouth.

I don't understand the half asian thing though, is keanu half asian?

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

Will Smith has played in too many smarmy wisecracking roles to pull off Neo. We'd constantly be waiting for him to be all like, "aight, agent smith 'n errything"

Though he did pull off Ali pretty well.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I'll be the first to say that I don't think the movie would do as well with two black male lead actors. Not in that genre and with that storyline.

Not that it wouldn't be a good movie, because even though I think Will Smith sucks he's better than Keanu Reeves, but purely because of demographic appeal and the willingness of the film's audience to accept a black guy as a Christ figure.

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But Jesus WAS black!

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I don't understand the half asian thing though, is keanu half asian?

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um, yes. surprised you didn't know, but i guess if you didn't, most of america doesn't either.

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Though he did pull off Ali pretty well.

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yes he did, but Ali was an outspoken charismatic person, and i was under the impression that neo is pretty much the opposite.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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But Jesus WAS black!

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nikka owes me $12!

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

Will Smith would suck as Neo, he was good at playing a caricature on the small screen but never learned the subtly required for film (yea I think 'Ali' is overrated, formulaic BS, thanks for asking). Keanu did a very good job in the first movie.

There's a lot of instances of this in hollywood history, a much better thread would have been "famous roles and the actors who turned them down".
e.g.:
- Karate Kid: Chuck Norris turned down the part of the Cobra Kai Sensei (SWIPE THE LEG!).
- Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandalf in LOTR.
- Johnny Depp was offered like every male leading role frm 1990 on, including Keanu's eventual roles in 'Speed' and 'The Matrix'.
- Jack Nicholson turned down the role of Michael Corleone in "The Godfather".

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

lol will smith lacks the 'subtly' but reeves did a good job. keanu has all the nuance of a nuclear [censored] bomb.

i hate will smith and he'd be playing completely against type with neo, but criticizing his chops while praising reeves is pretty LOL

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

I never said Reeves was good, I said he did a very good job in the first Matrix movie.

Reeves in Matrix > Smith in anything he's done (including Ali).

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

meh. i think reeves was pretty hammy at times in that movie, the role just conceals his deficits pretty well. i think smith was better in several of his big roles.

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Happyness >>>>> anything Keanu has ever done.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

Wait, johnny depp turned down the matrix?

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

Hard to imagine Jack Nicholson as Michael Corleone.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

I once read that Val Kilmer was originally asked to play the part of Morpheus too.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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it was his biggest regret as an actor

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Yeah, turning down a role that netted somebody else around $100 million might qualify as a regret.

I think if they cast Smith they don't go with Fishburne as Morpheus FWIW.

I think the movies would still have been an enormous success.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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Happyness >>>>> anything Keanu has ever done.

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rofl

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

I recall hearing that Michael Madsen turned down the role that John Travolta wound up taking for Pulp Fiction. He did Wyatt Earp instead.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

Will Smith would've been a terrible Neo, as they'd have had to change the script to give him a bunch of idiotic one-liners. He's become the black Christian Slater, always mugging for the camera so that the audience knows how cool he is.


Also, actors pointing out what roles they turned down is just an asshat way of trying to steal another guy's thunder. Half the time, they didn't even turn the damn thing down. Their people talked for a bit, couldn't agree on whatever, so everyone moved on.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

John Travolta turned down Richard Gere's role in an Officer and a Gentleman. Travolta did Urban Cowboy instead.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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but never learned the subtly required for film

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(SWIPE THE LEG!).

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What, are you drunk?

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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Happyness >>>>> anything Keanu has ever done.

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Great movie.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I think just about any actor in Hollywood could have played Neo by dumbing down their acting. Keanu is naturally dumbed down. Keanu definitely didn't make the movie the success it was.

Keanu has been good only in the Bill & Ted series and Point Break.

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Look, if you guys are going to talk about movies, you simply MUST do better:

River's Edge: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091860/
My Own Private Idaho: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102494/

River's Edge isn't just good--it's freaking great, and Reeves is actually damned good in it.

My Own Private Idaho isn't my favorite movie, but it's watchable, and Reeves actually does some quality acting in it.

I honestly think Keanu Reeves gets a raw deal.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I think if they cast Smith they don't go with Fishburne as Morpheus FWIW.

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What white actor would you cast as Morpheus (in keeping with the whole racial balance thing)?

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I think if they cast Smith they don't go with Fishburne as Morpheus FWIW.

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What white actor would you cast as Morpheus (in keeping with the whole racial balance thing)?

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I'm not surprised they asked Val Kilmer, because I can totally see him doing that character.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I recall hearing that Michael Madsen turned down the role that John Travolta wound up taking for Pulp Fiction. He did Wyatt Earp instead.

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Yea I heard this too. Better that it worked out as it did since Travolta is great in that and his death was very well done (obv would have been impossible if it had been Vic Vega).

Speaking of which,Tarantino was talking about a Vega brothers movie where they owned a club in the 80's or something. Never gonna happen of course, for some reason Tarantino loves to talk about movies that he'll never make.


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John Travolta turned down Richard Gere's role in an Officer and a Gentleman. Travolta did Urban Cowboy instead.

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Travolta also turned down Gere's role in Chicago. There's a thing IIRC on imdb about how Gere has pretty much made a career of Travolta's passes.

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What, are you drunk?

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Right, because I can't in one instance point out that it's easy to ruin a movie by mugging/over-action and in another take joy in the possibility of one of the cheesiest, campiest lines from one of the cheesiest, campiest movies of the 80's having been delivered by the king of cheese and camp, Chuck Norris.

Try harder to put me down next time, not that that's possible.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I think if they cast Smith they don't go with Fishburne as Morpheus FWIW.

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What white actor would you cast as Morpheus (in keeping with the whole racial balance thing)?

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I'm not surprised they asked Val Kilmer, because I can totally see him doing that character.

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insert do not want pic here,

It's hard for me to say who could take the place, but it would have to be someone like vin diesel.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

Will Smith is black?

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this isn't true. will smith "dumbed down" doesn't sound very interesting at all. what i mean is he said he turned down the movie and he regrets it, but i feel like if he played the role like keanu did, it wouldn't fit his image, and if he played it like the will smith in other movies, it would have taken away from the grandness/mystique of the role.

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Isn't that what acting is though? He's supposed to be someone different than from his other movies.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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this isn't true. will smith "dumbed down" doesn't sound very interesting at all. what i mean is he said he turned down the movie and he regrets it, but i feel like if he played the role like keanu did, it wouldn't fit his image, and if he played it like the will smith in other movies, it would have taken away from the grandness/mystique of the role.

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Isn't that what acting is though? He's supposed to be someone different than from his other movies.

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none of his fans would have been able to see him as the real Hitch if he did The Matrix.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I think if they cast Smith they don't go with Fishburne as Morpheus FWIW.

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What white actor would you cast as Morpheus (in keeping with the whole racial balance thing)?

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I'm not surprised they asked Val Kilmer, because I can totally see him doing that character.

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insert do not want pic here,

It's hard for me to say who could take the place, but it would have to be someone like vin diesel.

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Christopher Walken all the way "Neeeo, [pause] you are the one".

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none of his fans would have been able to see him as the real Hitch if he did The Matrix.

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agree 100%

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I don't understand the half asian thing though, is keanu half asian?

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um, yes. surprised you didn't know, but i guess if you didn't, most of america doesn't either.


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Reeves is 1/4 Asian at best. His mother is white, his dad was born in Hawaii, and is half white, half Portuguese/Chinese/Hawaiian. So only his paternal grandmother has any non-white blood, and she's a mix anyway.

If I were Asian, I wouldn't want to lay claim to him anyway. Hahaha.

But seriously -- I think Reeves gets a bum rap. Sure he sucks when he's trying to act with dialogue... and character and words and stuff. But a lot of acting is physical, especially movie acting (he couldn't get away with this crap on a stage), and Reeves' physical capabilities as an action star have been long underrated.

A bulk of the trilogy's great success is due to his performance as Neo, and much of that is really his look: how he runs up walls, shoots guns, does kung fu, and walks around in cool shades and a black trenchcoat. Not a lot of actors can pull that off (no matter how much more talented Phillip Seymour Hoffman is, he would be a total toolbag as Neo), and Reeves did a great job running up walls. He's equally adept in "Speed," a similarly lousy script that nevertheless benefits from him hanging off a speeding bus and jumping over subway trains. When you watch him do that crap, you just somehow suspend your disbelief. He gets paid a ton, and the studios know why. I think a lot of audience members don't -- or at least don't recognize it.

As for Will Smith, I think he's one of the few huge stars who also can manage that kind of physical acting, but his attitude is all wrong. The Wachowskis, as clever as they are, don't have a very good sense of humor and take their trilogy extremely seriously. Will Smith is too sarcastic to be a serious Neo. Sure he's good in his dramatic roles (I liked him in Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness, etc.) but his smirk is always loaded with a wisecrack waiting to come out.

Men In Black was the right vehicle for Smith. Matrix was the right vehicle for Reeves. That's why all of those movies made a crapload of cash.

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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meh. i think reeves was pretty hammy at times in that movie, the role just conceals his deficits pretty well. i think smith was better in several of his big roles.

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which is why he turned down the Matrix to do......WILD WILD WEST. wtf?

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

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I think if they cast Smith they don't go with Fishburne as Morpheus FWIW.

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What white actor would you cast as Morpheus (in keeping with the whole racial balance thing)?

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My first thought, for some reason, was Ed Harris. But maybe he's too vanilla, not mysterious enough. Then I thought Donald Sutherland, but he's probably too old (although the voice is perfect). Clancy Brown would be a super-great choice IMO (Highlander, Shawshank, etc).

Re: Will Smith as Neo?!?
 

I can imagine Will Smith, and any number of other guys who would've done a good job as Neo in The Matrix.

But to Keanu's credit, I can't imagine anybody else playing JOHNNY UTAH.

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I don't understand the half asian thing though, is keanu half asian?

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um, yes. surprised you didn't know, but i guess if you didn't, most of america doesn't either.


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Checks your facts before you start acting all bitter about being asian. He was born to a British mother, his fraternal Grandfather was Irish American, and his fraternal Grandmother was part Asian, Hawaian,and Portugues. So at most he was an eighth Asian. Get a clue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keanu_Reeves.

Also, addressing your earlier comment about how a half Asian isn't a typical Christ figure. Even if he was, and he is not, if the American public thinks he is white then it makes no difference.

Edit: Wow, I will leave this here, but I somehow missed PJ's earlier post.