Here Are 11 Things We Learned About "John Wick 4" From Keanu Reeves And Chad Stahelski Themselves

Chad discovered Rina via YouTube!

John Wick: Chapter 4 releases in UK cinemas today! So to celebrate the latest chapter in this epic saga, we sat down with director Chad Stahelski, and the man himself, Keanu Reeves.

BuzzFeed

Here's what they revealed about the making of the movie...

🚨 This post contains mild spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4. 🚨

1. Chad was partly inspired by The Wachowskis to direct the John Wick movies.

Steve Jennings/Stefanie Keenan/GLAAD/Warner Bros. Entertainment / Via Getty Images

Hi guys! My first question is for you, Chad. How did you go from being a stunt actor in The Matrix to a Director in these films?

Chad: Good question, it was pretty serendipitous. I was a stunt man on The Matrix films, and I learned a lot from The Wachowskis doing those movies. They were very inspirational and influential in my career. The Matrix producer, Joel Silver, let me do a couple of second-unit shots, and I learned the craft from doing that really.

I think it was four or five years on from those movies that Keanu got in touch with me about John Wick. We bumped into each other, and he said “hey, I’ve been sent a script, do you wanna have a look at it?” We both took a look at it and thought it was really different and cool. So we called up Derek [Kolstad] and he said, “would you like to direct it?”. I said, “yeah, that’d be pretty cool!”

2. At the beginning, he had to have a lot of help from Keanu.

Murray Close/Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment

Was it strange to work together in a new context?

Keanu: It felt pretty organic.

Chad: We did ask a lot of questions. I guess I had this arrogance from my second-unit work, but I quickly realised I didn’t know what I was doing. So I was banging down Keanu’s door quite a bit –

Keanu: That’s not true!

Chad: So it was a learning curve, but it was a fun learning curve.

Keanu: Actually, he didn’t know what a table read was.

Chad: Yeah! We did have to get a lot of advice from our mentor here.

3. Chad and Keanu were super impressed by the audacity of their stunt team.

Murray Close/Lionsgate

The fights are very chaotic; I'm thinking the one in the hotel and the one at the Arc de Triomphe. Were those hard to choreograph and did anything go wrong?

Chad: Choreography, I think, by its nature is fun. It's supposed to be difficult, you're supposed to figure it all out and that's the fun part. Did anything go wrong? I mean, there were no incidents, no animals or humans were hurt, but sometimes the moves don't quite do what we're supposed to do. But that's the fun part!

Keanu: The stunt guys were amazing. Like, in the Osaka Continental scene, there was this kid who just threw himself down an escalator.

Chad: Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

Keanu: He just did it!

Chad: If we're going to do an escalator fall, it's a little different…

Keanu: Cos it’s steel.

Chad: Yeah, and keeps going. Our stunt performer looked at it and we were like, “are you sure?” He's like, “yeah, I'm sure”, and then just launched it into. We were like, “yeah that was pretty good”.

4. To find Rina Sawayama, Chad literally YouTube searched "Japanese pop star".

Dirty Hit/Murray Close/Lionsgate

I’m a huge fan of Rina, how did she become involved in the project?

Chad: Well we were looking to cast Akira, we’d written that part and we were on the hunt for someone. Late one night in Berlin, I was just going through YouTube and I just literally typed in “Japanese pop star”, I swear to god. There was a music video of Rina and she had this orange wig on, and I just thought she had a really interesting look. The way she moved and how her face changed in different angles, there was something about her I just really dug. A day later we had her on a Zoom call going, “hey, how would you like to be in a John Wick movie?”

5. And they were also super pumped for Rina represent the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest (this was back when she was rumoured to be our entry).

Scott Dudelson / Via Getty Images for Coachella

Do you know what Eurovision is?

Chad: The talent contest?

Keanu: Yeah.

Do you know that she's tipped to be our entry for the UK?

Keanu: Whaaaaa?

Chad: No, I did not know.

What do you guys think about that?

Keanu: I that's cool, good luck!

Chad: Yeah, good luck, we love Rina.

Keanu: What’s the song going to be?

Chad: “An Eye For An Eye”? Rina did a song for the film.

Can she use that?

Keanu: Yes.

6. Rina was keen to do all her own stunt work.

Murray Close/Lionsgate

Did it ever feel like a gamble casting her, it being her first film role?

Chad: You never know until you meet someone, but she was nice enough to fly to Berlin and talk to us; she met Keanu then too. We got a very confident, positive vibe from her and we just thought, “yeah, this is a good call”.

Keanu: And she wanted to do the action.

Chad: She really wanted to do it. John Wick is a lot about enthusiasm, and she had it.

7. Keanu doesn't have a dream co-star; he feels like the universe brings them to him.

JB Lacroix / WireImage/Rodin Eckenroth / WireImage / Via Getty Images

Keanu, do you have a dream co-star that you'd love to join this franchise?

Keanu: I don't know if we were to tell another story, what would be a dream… I don't have one. Because there's so many and the universe kind of comes up with ideas. Like when I was at the gym with Peter Stormare who I worked with on Constantine, and he was like, hey, Keanu…

Chad: Laurence Fishburne too! That happened because Keanu talked to Laurence and Laurence expressed an interest in the movies. We were on the phone to him the next day being like, “please be in our movie”. Bill Skarsgård was someone we were always looking to get, Scott Adkins too. Hiroyuki Sanada has almost been in two of them and we managed to get him for this one!

8. The King of Jordan lent Chad a helicopter to get an aerial shot in the desert.

Lionsgate

Chad: The king of Jordan gave us a Black Hawk. We were trying to get to a location we couldn't access, and he was nice enough to lend us a helicopter to fly the crew out to get the sunrise shot that you see in the movie.

Keanu: That’s kind of cool. The King gave you a helicopter to get a shot because [he’s] a fan of John Wick.

Chad: The Jordanian government was awesome, they were fantastic.

9. And they once had to shut down production for Joe Biden.

Win McNamee/Murray Close/Lionsgate / Via Getty Images

Do either of you have any sort of behind-the-scenes stories you can share from filming?

Chad: We've been shut down by rain, by snow. We had the President of the United States shut us down once when he was in New York! We were shooting on Roosevelt Island and we had to stop and wait for Biden to go by.

10. Bill Skarsgård was the only choice for the part of the Marquis.

Murray Close/Lionsgate

Bill delivers an amazing performance, it's so good. Was there ever anyone else in the running for that role?

Chad: Actually, no. We were trying to cast the other roles first and Bill was nice enough to read the script. He was the one that actually said I want to be The Marquis. We hadn't gone to anybody else at that point.

And then that scene where he puts the knife in Mr. Nobody’s hand, where did that come from?

Chad: Oh, our stigmata fetish. In John Wick, I guess you get your hand stabbed a lot. We just thought we needed something to really show what The Marquis is all about. We were kind of riffing with that one about how to make that mean something more than just the cost. Not everything has a cost, but everything has a price – good line!

11. And finally, Chad and Keanu had never seen any John Wick memes... Until now!

Lionsgate/ethan_photoshops/knowyourmeme / Via Reddit

Have you seen any John Wick memes, because there are a lot out there?

Keanu: I haven't.

Chad: I haven't either.

Would you like to?

Keanu: Yeah, sure, some whackiness! John Wick *runs out of bullets*. Enemies: Finally we're going to kill John Wick. (Laughs).

Chad: Ha, the pencil!

Keanu: Yeah pencil! When someone yells at your dog… No, no, that’s no good.

Lionsgate/Nickelodeon/wegothiscovered/YourOtherLeft/Universal Pictures/@michcikzz / Via Twitter

Keanu: Keanu Reeves says he’ll make as many John Wick movies as fans want. John Wick 37. Me. Yeah!!! Keanu Reeves in movies, Keanu Reeves in real life, that’s funny.

Chad: The bunny’s pretty funny.

Keanu: He’s like, arghhh, hi!

Because people do say that is the nicest man in Hollywood, is that true?

Keanu: Oh my gosh, no. No, no.

Chad: He's pretty close.

Keanu: Nah, there's tons of nice people.

Chad: There are a lot of people.

Keanu: It’s full of nice people.

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And will there be a John Wick 5? Well, the answer – reportedly – is we have to "wait and see". John Wick: Chapter 4 is out now in UK cinemas.