Will Smith is getting to play Neo nearly three decades after he famously rejected the lead role in the 1999 blockbuster The Matrix.
In the music video “Beautiful Scars” (below), Smith teams with rapper Big Sean and Obanga for a Matrix-themed video which has Smith doing his own version of several iconic scenes from the movie – including taking the red pill, the “bullet time” stunt and fighting in the kung fu simulator. While it might “only” be a music video, it does give fans the chance to see what Smith might have looked like in the film.
Five years ago, Smith posted a video (also below) breaking down exactly why he turned down The Matrix after a meeting with creators The Wachowskis back in 1998.
“I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth, all right, I did turn down Neo in The Matrix,” Smith said. “After we made Men in Black, the Wachowskis came in and they’d only done one movie. They did a movie called Bound. And then they made a pitch for The Matrix. And as it turns out, they’re geniuses, but there’s a fine line in a pitch meeting between genius and what I experienced in the meeting. So this is the actual pitch that they made for The Matrix…”
At this point, Smith humorously enacts a meeting where the Wachowskis enthuse confusingly about various wild action moves the character will be doing, but don’t discuss plot or character (“And then we’ll put in 50 cameras, and you’ll see the whole jump while you stop in the middle of the jump…”).
“So I made Wild Wild West [instead],” Smith said, referring to his notorious 1999 sci-fi flop.
Having said that, Smith adds, “Keanu was perfect. Laurence Fishburne was perfect. If I had done it, because I’m Black, [Fishburne’s character] Morpheus wouldn’t have been Black because they were looking at Val Kilmer [for] Morpheus. So I probably would have messed The Matrix up. I would have ruined it. I did y’all a favor.”
The role of Neo, of course went instead to Keanu Reeves, who went on to reprise the character in three follow-up films.
Smith also recounted how he almost similarly turned down his hit film Men in Black. “I had done Independence Day the year before. So I was like, ‘Another alien movie?’ So I turned down Men in Black. And [producer] Steven Spielberg called me [and asked] ‘Why are you turning down the movie?’ I was like, ‘You know, I just don’t want to be the alien guy.’ He said, ‘Do me a favor. Don’t use your brain for this one. Use my brain.’ He was so serious that I was like, ‘All right, he did do Jaws…’”
Here’s Smith’s (very entertaining) explanation of why he turned down The Matrix:
