Most movie fans are familiar with the fact that Will Smith was originally offered the role of Neo in the cult sci-fi movie The Matrix. Smith turned down the role, and which the directing duo The Wachowski then gave to Keanu Reeves. The rest is pretty much history, considering the fact that Reeves became one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actors while The Matrix is viewed as one of the best action film series of all times.
Now, 20 years after the first Matrix movie was released, Smith finally decided to reveal the story about why he turned down the role. According to the Men in Black star, he didn’t understand the vision and the ideas The Wachowskis had for the movie. The duo had an unusual pitch, and talked about elements of the movie that didn’t seem that much important at the time.
Still, despite passing on such a great franchise like The Matrix and doing the awful Wild Wild West instead, Will Smith thinks that things turned out for the best.
“Keanu was perfect. Laurence Fishburne was perfect,” Smith explained. “If I had done it, because I’m black, then Morpheus wouldn’t have been black. They were looking at Val Kilmer. I was gonna be Neo and Val Kilmer was gonna be Morpheus, so I probably would have messed The Matrix up. I would have ruined it. So I did
You can check out Smith’s full story about this below.
