00:00Why don't we just go out and have a drink at a bar?
00:02That got you!
00:03I know!
00:04I have a stare fetish, in case you didn't get that from all the other movies.
00:07That moment, I'm left with kind of, f**k, really?
00:11It's like, ah!
00:12Oh my gosh!
00:13And so it begins...
00:14Well, speaking of just punishing sequences, the one that I really want to ask you about
00:23is the staircase sequence in this one, because, my god, that's a lot of stairs, man!
00:29I didn't get to do that.
00:31I had a wonderful stuntman.
00:32But, I mean, you're still going up those stairs.
00:35Oh, no, no, no.
00:36Don't get me wrong.
00:37There was a lot.
00:38I did, like, 90% of it, but there's a stair fall that was professional.
00:43Sure.
00:44But, yeah, that was very intense.
00:47The other sequence I'll ask about is the Arc de Triomphe, and just being surrounded by
00:50all those cars.
00:51I mean, are you taking those car hits, or, again, is that...
00:54Those are trained professionals.
00:56I'm throwing people into cars.
00:58I'm like, yeah.
00:59So, yeah, I'll leave that to the professionals.
01:03I have a stare fetish, in case you didn't get that from all the other movies about throwing
01:06stunt guys.
01:07It's either car hits or stairs, right?
01:08I can't figure out why.
01:09Or chopping things off hands.
01:10I don't know.
01:11It's very dynamic.
01:12I mean, it is.
01:13It's very stigmata, right?
01:14So, I think Keanu showed up on the first day, and showed up to the bottom when he runs up
01:17and checks his watch, and that's a real honest reaction.
01:21He looks up, and he's like, fuck.
01:23I just think he actually realized, like, oh, we're going to spend the next two weeks here
01:26running up and down.
01:27Yeah.
01:28It was pretty funny.
01:30How do you imagine their lives outside of this work?
01:31Like, do you guys have, like, built backstories for who they are outside of the assassin world?
01:36Oh, yeah.
01:37I think Winston goes back to his Eastside brownstone and plays a lot of Wagner.
01:41That guy!
01:42No!
01:43No.
01:44No.
01:45Because I was imagining, because I imagined him being...
01:47You didn't imagine they lived together.
01:48You don't say they lived together.
01:49No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
01:50no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
01:51no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
01:52no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
01:53no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
01:54no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
01:55no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
02:02no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
02:07no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
02:12no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
02:18Well, it's canon now. You said it. I'm curious just how you kind of went about filling in
02:23the gaps for yourself and his personal backstory.
02:26For me, what was the sort of defining sort of characteristic of Bowery King was when
02:39John Wick gets in trouble in that second movie and everything looks like it's going to go
02:43right into the toilet. And he pulls this marker out and he hands it to some guy. And
02:48then suddenly you're in this underworld that's underneath the Continental and way
02:56underneath the high table. You're like, what's going on? That he is the safest when
03:06he's with the Bowery King. Like when he's with the Bowery King, he's completely safe.
03:13That for me was sort of the defining thing.
03:18Man has to look his best when it's time to get married or buried.
03:23When you have a character who's introducing him to people as nobody, do you have a
03:27certain like extra feeling of responsibility to figure out who this person is behind all
03:32the mystery?
03:33Of course, of course. I think with any character, you have to do a lot of research for me at
03:37least. And for this one, because I find he's one of the most human characters in the
03:41franchise because he's the audience. He's the guy coming in from the outside world into
03:46their world. And so what I told Chad was, what if the tracker was studying every John
03:51Wick film as if it was a documentary? And so I built this whole backstory that he was
03:55just a student and I would put photos of Keanu in my trailer from the different John
04:01Wicks. And it was like a timeline and like this was the movie that Tracker was going
04:04to have his moment. And then he'd go on to his next mission. So that was kind of like
04:09a bit of a backstory that I built for him, which was fun for me. And obviously that doesn't
04:13make it on the screen, but it helps anchor me and gives him those qualities that folks
04:19like you like.
04:20Well, now I'm going to be just thinking every time I watch the first three, I'm going
04:23to be like, oh, Tracker's out in the back.
04:26Tracker is definitely in every bush, behind every nook and cranny, you know, in all the
04:31John Wick films.
04:32You know, try to make audience happy. Even they watched one, two, three, and then a little
04:44pressure because we have to, they're going to be chair. And also we are new face, so
04:55some freshness bring into the movie. So that was a fun part.
05:01It's not lost. I mean, the magnitude of what this movie has done for people. But at the
05:05same time, you know, I rose to the occasion, I took responsibility and I said, all right,
05:09I'm ready to get down and dirty. I'm going to tussle with Keanu Reeves.
05:13Knowing how many bodies you're throwing at Keanu Reeves, I'm curious if there is a stunt
05:18person who has the record for being killed the most times by John Wick.
05:21They're actually, no lie, I swear to God, Keanu is very tight with the stunt team, obviously.
05:26Keanu actually gave t-shirts, it was like three different t-shirts, like the under 10,
05:30how many times you died in a sequence, and then the 10 to 15. And I think two of our
05:35guys, yes, we know who died the most in a sequence. I think it might've been one of
05:40our guys, Bruce, it's either Bruce or Jeremy, or maybe even Lee. The two biggest ones were
05:45the stair fight and the Arc de Triomphe fight. I think it was the same guy. And he got like
05:4918 kills. But then our jujitsu instructor, Dave Camarillo, had the most number of dog
05:54attacks, both in rehearsal. He's crazy. I mean, he got a t-shirt, Keanu gave him a t-shirt
05:57for like a hundred dog attacks. He did like a hundred. He was like the dog guy. The dogs
06:01just love to play with him. So that was A.
06:03What is the recovery process for making a drama film? And also just, is there a sequence
06:07that left you with kind of the biggest ouch?
06:12Let's see. You know, I think for me, part of the pleasure of these films is the training
06:17and all the action because it's fun and it's a way to express the character. You know,
06:24his struggle getting knocked down, getting back up, fighting for what he wants, believes
06:29in, fighting for. And in terms of the ouchies, you know, we're doing action like 10 hours
06:38a day. So for me, recovery is all about cold water.
06:42Last words, Winston? Just have fun out there.
06:49I think there's a comparison to make between you and Tom Cruise because both of you have
06:53just an extreme love of cinema. You guys love movies so much. And again, you both
06:58personally put yourself on the line. You throw yourself into this action so much. I'd love
07:03kind of your perspective on what he does in the Mission Impossible movies. And also, I
07:07mean, just your thoughts about how Ethan Hunt would step up against John Wick.
07:11Why don't we just go out and have a drink at a bar?
07:14They're on the same side.
07:16Yeah. No, what Tom Cruise does is extraordinary and special and something that, again, another
07:25legend in another universe, you know, he's doing something. I'm more like on the ground
07:31playing in the mud and he's like flying and jumping and outside of buildings and helicopters,
07:39fighter jets. So what he's doing in terms of the events that he's participating in,
07:49I think is extraordinary. And his passion for it, his skill, his talent just shines.
07:56And I think we're just the beneficiaries of his excellence, you know, and he's inspiring.
08:04And I think one thing I could say is that I share, you know, as you spoke about the
08:11passion for movies and for, you know, we're lucky to be there and we're just trying to
08:17have fun and help people like what we do.
08:19And both of you are going to be in the upcoming John Wick spinoff, Ballerina. And I'm just
08:23hoping you could talk about just working with Ana de Armas, kind of your character's dynamic
08:27compared to what Keanu did with John Wick and you guys.
08:30She was great. I was in Prague last November, December.
08:34It was December, yeah.
08:35She was terrific.
08:36I mean, we have a long scene together and she was great.
08:39Yeah. Well, I had a short scene, but I mean, she's just so, she's just so dynamic.
08:47And I mean, I haven't, you know, I wasn't there for any of the action, but given what
08:53I read in the script, it's going to be a hell of a film.
08:56Yeah, Keanu's in it too.
08:58Yeah. So he'd done, yeah, he'd done all this action with her. She was really up for it.
09:03Yeah. I'm stoked to see it.
09:04The director on that series is Len Wiseman. Len was a director I worked for when I was
09:08just a stunt guy, when they were doing the Underworlds and Die Hard 4, I think it was.
09:12So visually, I think Len is, that's why we selected him. And then we kind of, one thing
09:18I wanted to be very clear of is I wanted to be kind of hands-free of anything to do with
09:22it, because I, and that, I just wanted, I think the best way for a property to expand
09:28is to kind of bring in some ideas. I think Len was great wanting to understand themes
09:34and looks and how we do the process of jumping, because it is a little anti-systematic or
09:40anti-illogical probably, illogical. And then Len kind of took that and kind of rolled it
09:45off. But then when, you know, I've gotten to meet Anna a few times and Keanu obviously
09:50had known her from other projects, and she shares a lot of the same attributes that Keanu
09:55does. Like she's got that, I'm going to make this mine and do something cool with it. And
10:00Len is, I think, the perfect director to let somebody expand that way. So I would say that's
10:04probably the most important thing is she gets it, but in her way. And I think that's what
10:09a franchise needs to expand.
10:11We are now at a point in this franchise, we are seeing multiple kind of spinoffs developing.
10:16I'm curious if that's something that you'd be interested in exploring.
10:19I wouldn't have a problem with that.
10:23I mean, certainly if that was on the table, I would be very excited about it. I read a
10:29script a long time ago of a movie that Keanu wound up doing that they wanted me to do a
10:35part in. And I opened the pages and I read it. I read the first two pages of it. And
10:40I had this premonition that I would work with him. It just wasn't going to be that movie.
10:45And it turned out that that was true. And then, like, I don't know, maybe five or six
10:49years later, we wound up doing The Matrix together. So, you know, I'm grateful and I'm
10:58really excited about this one because this one, I think, is the best one of the Wicks
11:02franchises. And whatever, you know, whatever the gods have for us, the cinema gods have
11:08for us out there, I'm just I'm waiting.
11:11You and Donnie Yen, like, that's just two legends right there on screen. Tell me just
11:15about the process of building that scene and working with Donnie Yen.
11:19It was so fun. We have no rehearsal before shooting together. But on set, we put the
11:29idea together, matching for each character's emotion and choreograph everything. So he
11:37said, oh, how about this? Oh, if you do, I can do this. And then boom, boom, boom, boom.
11:43OK, shoot. And then one take, two takes. Done. And a high five. So collaboration was so easy
11:52and exciting and so much fun.
11:55At the end of the last movie, there's a bit of ambiguity regarding whether or not Winston
11:59shoots John Wick because he knows that he'll survive falling off that roof or whether he
12:03does it out of pure self-interest. And I'm curious, just your perspective on that matter.
12:08Well, I'm going to say, of course, he knew he was wearing a bulletproof vest. He said
12:13Winston's an expert marksman and knew that he would survive, bounce off a car 55 stories
12:18down and survive some months and be taken care of by the Bowery King. There was no way
12:23in self-interest whatsoever.
12:27It's the bouncing on the way down and the landing that I had to question about.
12:33We look good together, man.
12:34Well, I was going to say, Sharon fully accepts what he does.
12:39When you say accepts, I mean, it's done. And he's Winston. He's like, you know, I'm his guy.
12:46But I mean, that moment, I'm left with kind of, fuck, really? Shit.
12:53And then I don't know, probably edit it out. But yeah, that was what I was thinking as a character.
12:58I'm a big fan of your Constantine and the fact that you're going to be making a sequel is very exciting.
13:04We're trying. I don't know if it's going to happen.
13:06Well, I'm hoping it does. And just one question that I have is, do you think that you might
13:10go blonde this time?
13:12I know I'm playing a different Constantine than the comic, you know, and I do get in
13:18a bit of trouble for that.
13:20I know, but then I would be gray.
13:22Well, maybe he dyes it and he thinks blonde's a good color.
13:24Yeah, I don't know if I look good as a blonde, but I appreciate that. And I do.
13:31Yeah, hopefully I get to do it, but I don't know.
13:35Hey, DC's working on some interesting things. They've got Elseworlds going.
13:38Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hopefully we can play.
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