Beloved, breathtaking actor Keanu Reeves has revealed the bizarre reason why he was forced to star in one of his most critically panned movies. While Reeves has carved out a legacy as a cinematic hero thanks to roles in the likes of The Matrix and John Wick, the 2000 thriller The Watcher instead puts Reeves in the role of a villain in this tale of a depraved serial killer and the FBI agent on his tail. The role of a killer (one not doing it in the name of his murdered dog, at least) seems ill-fitting for Reeves, and the actor admits to having “never found the script interesting.” So why did he end up starring in this thriller with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 11%? Well, because his so-called friend forged his signature.

“I never found the script interesting, but a friend of mine forged my signature on the agreement. I couldn’t prove he did and I didn’t want to get sued, so I had no other choice but to do the film.”

Reeves made the revelation back in 2001 in an interview with The Guardian, with the “friend” in question none other than the director of The Watcher, Joe Charbanic, who the actor knew after the filmmaker helmed a number of music videos for Reeves’ band, Dogstar. Determined to see the John Wick star play against type, he forged Reeves’ signature without his knowledge on a contract that also saw the actor being forced to accept “union scale” salary. Much less than his co-stars James Spader and Marisa Tomei received.

The Watcher Was Mauled by Critics

The Watcher is described as an “exciting psychological thriller,” which seems open to debate, and follows Keanu Reeves as serial killer David Allen Griffin and James Spader as FBI Special Agent Joel Campbell. Attempting something akin to Hitchcock or the Hannibal story Red Dragon, The Watcher attempts to tell a cat-and-mouse tale as a killer who preys on young women follows the cop that was after him when he moves from Los Angeles to Chicago.

Of course, the movie failed to do what it intended, and rather than crafting a taut serial killer classic, The Watcher was panned by critics, many of whom felt that Reeves’ character was woefully underdeveloped. Legendary critic Roger Ebert said at the time, “Reeves, as the killer, has the fairly thankless task of saying only what the movie needs him to say; he’s limited by the fact that his killer has no real dimension or personality apart from his function as a plot device.”

Thankfully, The Watcher did not bring Reeves’ Hollywood career to a grinding halt. The actor would return as Neo in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions which, despite divisive reactions, saw huge success at the box office. The actor has since become a Hollywood favorite, starring in the likes of Constantine, A Scanner Darkly, The Lake House, with the John Wick franchise taking his career to even loftier heights.

Reeves has several projects in the pipeline, including a return as John Wick in the upcoming spinoff Ballerina. He is also due to star in Jonah Hill’s black comedy Outcome, the comedy Good Fortune from writer and director Aziz Ansari, and will voice Shadow in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.