Throughout his career, Keanu Reeves has done things his own way, despite the pressures of Hollywood. Keanu is the only man in Hollywood to be applauded for turning down a $12 million salary. He rejected the Speed sequel and although that didn’t sit well with the executives, Keanu just didn’t buy into the script, and he was completely right as the film tanked at the box office, while Sandra Bullock called it the biggest regret of her career.

In the following, we’re going to take a closer look at a contract clause Keanu recently implemented. Once again, he’s receiving praise for the move. Keanu is doing it to protect the future of actors from the editing room. We’ll reveal what he did, and how Keanu is taking the matter very seriously.

Keanu Reeves Won’t Do A Film That Involves “Deepfake” Edits

During his interview alongside Wired, Keanu Reeves made quite the reveal. From the looks of it, Keanu will never surrender to the machines. In fact, the actor put a clause in his contract that ensures he won’t have to deal with edits such as deepfakes. Keanu is okay with the use of CGI from time to time, but claims Hollywood has gone too far with certain edits.

“Yeah, digitally. I don’t mind if someone takes a blink out during an edit,” Reeves said. “But early on, in the early 2000s, or it might have been the ’90s, I had a performance changed. They added a tear to my face, and I was just like, ‘Huh?!’ It was like, I don’t even have to be here.”

He continues, revealing he wants no part in the direction Hollywood seems to be headed towards.

“What’s frustrating about that is you lose your agency,” Reeves continued in regards to the deepfakes. “When you give a performance in a film, you know you’re going to be edited, but you’re participating in that. If you go into deepfake land, it has none of your points of view. That’s scary. It’s going to be interesting to see how humans deal with these technologies. They’re having such cultural, sociological impacts, and the species is being studied. There’s so much ‘data’ on behaviors now.”Credit to Keanu for taking a stand and moving in the direction he feels is best for the industry and its future.

Keanu Reeves Showed Concern For The Direction The Media Is Headed Towards

Keanu made another reveal during his interview with Wired, and this time, he showed concern for the direction of the industry. It seems like in Keanu’s view, if things continue in this direction, edits will take over films, especially with technology advancing at a rapid pace.

“People are growing up with these tools: We’re listening to music already that’s made by AI in the style of Nirvana, there’s NFT digital art,” Reeves said. “It’s cool, like, Look what the cute machines can make! But there’s a corporatocracy behind it that’s looking to control those things. Culturally, socially, we’re gonna be confronted by the value of real, or the non-value. And then what’s going to be pushed on us? What’s going to be presented to us?”

“It’s this sensorium. It’s spectacle. And it’s a system of control and manipulation,” Reeves continued. “We’re on our knees looking at cave walls and seeing the projections, and we’re not having the chance to look behind us.”

Keanu is clearly against the use of deepfakes. However, the actor has used CGI in his films, particularly John Wick: Chapter 4.

A Scene In John Wick Chapter 4 Did Get Some CGI Help

Yes, John Wick: Chapter 4 did get a little help from CGI. Visual effects supervisor Janelle Croshaw Ralla explained the digital reality that Keanu was in during the film. According to CinemaBlend, there was one part that had to be digitally altered.

Ralla revealed, “Keanu actually did that, of course. Light VFX took all the Jordan footage and created a full CG environment to put that into, and it just worked beautifully. That’s the beautiful thing about a John Wick film, you’re always starting with something real. It’s very, very rare that you’re not.”

Visual effects supervisor, Jonathan Rothbart, revealed the minor adjustments made. “We were really there, and it just gives you those huge vistas. However, sand is kind of a nightmare because you can only brush so much sand away and you’ve got horses riding through and everything else, so traditionally you end up replacing a lot of that sand digitally just to hide all of the tracks and the machinery.”

A minor adjustment and one we assume Keanu was okay with.