The Oscars snub that infuriated Keanu Reeves: “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Keanu Reeves is one of the most beloved movie stars in the world. Throughout his career, he has delighted audiences with his roles in revolutionary action films, time-travelling comedies, and romantic dramas. However, despite his box office dominance and deep abiding love from the public, he’s never been an actor whose films trouble the Academy Awards.
By and large, Reeves hasn’t given a hoot about the Oscars not recognising his efforts, but one snub did prompt a reaction from the usually serene star. In fact, it made him downright angry.
In 2006, Reeves spoke to Playboy magazine about his life and career. At that time, he was building up to the release of A Scanner Darkly, an innovative sci-fi tale realised with rotoscope animation. While Reeves was customarily tight-lipped on his personal life, he was happy to discuss the movie and his slightly left-of-centre fascination with technology. You see, he admitted to not owning a computer or a BlackBerry despite being someone who loves learning about new advancements.
“With all technology, I am interested in the ideas, what it means sociologically,” Reeves mused. “I love reading about inventions, knowing why and how people use them—the internet and the rest—but I’m far more fascinated by the human aspects. As far as I can tell, devices meant to save you time and help you communicate actually take away time and give you an excuse not to communicate.”
Nearly 20 years ago, Playboy’s interviewer couldn’t have known that Reeves had just peered through the veil into the isolating, tech-centric future we live in today. However, they did recognise that it seemed odd for a man who played Neo—an ace hacker—in one of the most technologically pioneering movies in history to not even own a computer. “Neo from The Matrix has no computer?” the interviewer asked incredulously, to which Reeves admitted that little factoid always made his directors, the Wachowskis, laugh.
After the talk turned to The Matrix, though, Reeves became animated. It was clear how much the three Matrix movies he’d made up to that point meant to him, and he was willing to go out on a limb and declare it the greatest sci-fi franchise ever. At that time, it was second only to Star Wars in terms of box office revenue, but Reeves insisted, “I would say we’re the new number one. Everyone has their own ranking, but The Matrix is definitely my favourite. I still get protective about it.”
Interestingly, the star then revealed just how protective he is of the stunning worlds created by the Wachowskis, along with their cast and crew. “I got so mad when The Matrix wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award last time,” Reeves confessed. When the interviewer began to ask him what he believed it should have been nominated for, he interrupted them to say, “At least for the special effects. Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking insane?”
Indeed, while the first film won all four Oscars, it was nominated for, including ‘Best Visual Effects’, the Academy shut out both of the sequels—Reloaded and Revolutions. Neither of those movies was as well-received as the first one, but the visual effects were similarly pioneering, and an argument could be made that they also deserved consideration from the Academy.
After all, “bullet time” pioneer John Gaeta realised that the sequels required entirely new technologies to bring the Wachowskis’ vision to life, so he and his team created a virtual camera that could move through virtual cinematography, comprised entirely of digital characters, locations, and events. Clearly, ask Reeves, and he’d argue that if this kind of progress isn’t worthy of Oscar nominations, what is?
