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"It Was Sort Of Like An O*gy": Before He Was John Wick And Neo, Keanu Reeves Had To Audition For 7 Hours For His Most Cultural Role Of All Time

Keanu Reeves is the action hero with a poet's soul, the Hollywood A-lister who rides the subway, and the internet's eternal boyfriend. But before he became John Wick, before he was Neo, before he turned "whoa" into a cultural phenomenon, Reeves had to fight, literally and metaphorically, for what might be his most defining role ever. 

And no, we're not talking about a high-flying assassin or a chosen one from a dystopian future. We're talking about the audition that lasted seven grueling hours, a test of endurance, patience, and sheer willpower. 

It wasn't just an audition, it was a battle. A trial by fire. That's right! Before he was dodging bullets in slow motion, he was navigating one of the toughest audition processes in Hollywood. So, what role was it? And why did it push him to his absolute limit? Buckle up, because this story is really interesting.

The audition that almost broke Keanu Reeves

A room full of sweaty actors, each trying to outdo the other. Directors barking instructions. Intense physical movement. Keanu Reeves, in the middle of it all, pushed his body to exhaustion. This wasn't just reading a few lines off a script. This was full immersion into the world of the character. Reeves later described the experience to The Wrap as, 

It was sort of s*xual. It was sort of like an o*gy. Reminded me of Rome. But they got who they wanted, I guess, and luckily I was one of the people they wanted. We both had ideas about what we were doing, and serendipitously our ideas were the same.

It was less of an audition and more of a proving ground. He wasn't just being tested on acting chops but on stamina, discipline, and raw presence. Directors and producers wanted to see if he had the ability to fully embody the character, not just in a scripted sense but in a deeply visceral way.

And Reeves, being Reeves, gave it everything he had. He didn't complain. He didn't ask for breaks. He threw himself into the audition with the same dedication that would later define his action-hero career. By the end of the day, he was drenched in sweat, physically drained, but still standing.

The casting team was blown away. Reeves had something special, an intensity, a sincerity, and a willingness to push himself beyond the limits of normal Hollywood auditions. It was clear that he was the guy. 

How Keanu Reeves became the cultural icon he is today

Landing the role of Theodore Logan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was just the beginning. Keanu Reeves had passed the audition with flying colors, but now he had to bring the character to life. And this was no ordinary character, this was one-half of the most iconic time-traveling, air-guitar-playing, history-defying duo in cinematic history.

Training for the role was as intense as the audition. He spent weeks alongside co-star Alex Winter, perfecting their infectious on-screen chemistry. They practiced their mannerisms, fine-tuned their surfer-dude cadence, and dove deep into the absurdity that made Bill & Ted such a lovable and enduring pair.

Reeves approached it with the same dedication he would later bring to his martial arts training for The Matrix and his weapons training for John Wick. The result? A role that catapulted him into Hollywood superstardom. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure wasn't just a hit, it became a pop culture phenomenon.

Fans quoted his lines endlessly, the character's influence spread across movies, TV shows, and even memes decades later. And at the center of it all was Keanu Reeves, the guy who survived a seven-hour audition that felt like an orgy of chaos and determination.

This role may not have required the brutal fight choreography of John Wick or the philosophical depth of The Matrix, but it required something just as demanding, Keanu's complete and total commitment to joy, humor, and the power of friendship. And as history shows, when Keanu commits to something, magic happens.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure can be streamed on Max.

10 John Wick Injuries Ranked By How Bad They Would Hurt

The John Wick franchise puts its titular anti-hero through as much pain as any action movie protagonist has ever endured. John Wick (Keanu Reeves) first arrived on the world's radar with his eponymous 2014 sleeper hit, which launched the ongoing John Wick franchise. The popularity of the John Wick movies has also been seen as a major turning point in action movies. With the John Wick franchise's emphasis on stunt work, "gun-fu," and martial arts, Keanu Reeves' legendary assassin has battled his way through innumerable adversaries while surviving countless seemingly impossible situations.

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However, like all action movies, the John Wick franchise bends the rules of reality a bit with what is survivable for a human. At the same time, the series has also spared John himself none of the pain of the injuries he encounters along the way. Here are 10 John Wick injuries, ranked in order of pure pain.

10) John Gets Attacked by Iosef's Gang – John Wick

The Baba Yaga's revenge mission in the first John Wick famously begins after the killing of his dog by the ruthless Iosef (Alfie Allen) and his gang, but John himself doesn't escape the situation unscathed. John isn't able to fight off the attackers and save his dog due to one of them clocking him in the back of the head with an aluminum bat, followed by John being struck in the arm before being kicked and punched into submission. While it's a relatively tame beating by R-rated action movie standards, it still puts John through a lot of visible pain.

The first strike to John's head with an aluminum bat would be the most severe injury of the moment. While it isn't delivered as a home run kind of swing, it's still enough to put John down for the count, as it would anyone on the receiving end of it. The follow-up strike to John's arm probably would've also left him with a broken arm, but the list of Baba Yaga injuries that he bounces back from is just getting started.

9) John Gets Dropped Onto the Dance Floor – John Wick

During the nightclub shootout in the original John Wick, the Baba Yaga finds himself battling one of his main foes in the movie, Viggo's henchman Kiril (Daniel Bernhardt.) Despite John initially having Kirill on the ropes, his opponent manages to put him in a Fireman's carry throw and toss him off the second floor of the nightclub onto the dance floor below. The drop itself is a good 15 to 20 feet, and while John manages to walk away from it, it clearly hits him hard.

Such a drop from that height would, at a minimum, leave anyone badly banged up with the wind knocked right out of them. More likely, one would be looking at cracked or broken ribs and other fractures in such a fall. The Baba Yaga might be durable, but John Wick definitely sugarcoats the effects of the impact of such a drop on the human body.

8) John Getting Kicked Through the Glass Cases – John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum

In the climactic Continental showdown in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, John battles a team of sword-wielding Shinobi warriors led by Zero (Mark Dacascos.) Though John defeats both Zero and the rest of his enemies, he has to endure being kicked through over a dozen glass cases repeatedly, even dropping through a glass floor with two of Zero's associates (Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman.) This is actually even more dangerous than it looks to the naked eye.

Glass being shattered leaves jagged edges at every corner, which can and does easily cut and slice through any part of the human body traveling through it. John Wick, fortunately, is able to walk away with relatively minor cuts and scrapes, but that's largely thanks to plot armor and the glass cases shattering into thousands of fragments (as movie glass is designed to do.) Realistically, the Baba Yaga is lucky to have not been a victim of death by a thousand cuts after being kicked through that many glass cases.

7) John Severing His Ring Finger – John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

John is a marked man at the beginning of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and he fights his way to caravan of the High Table's Elder (Saïd Taghmaoui) to plead his case. The Elder agrees, on the condition that John become an assassin directly employed by the High Table for the rest of his life, with John also forced to show his deference by severing his ring finger on his left hand. John then cauterizes the wound, and obviously, severing any bodily limb brings with it a lot of pain.

The practice of chopping off one's fingers as a form of self-inflicted punishment has plenty of real-world examples, being most closely associated with the Japanese yakuza. While cutting off his ring finger would be quite unlikely to kill John, it and the follow-up burn to cauterize the wound are still among the most painful injuries he's ever gone through in the franchise.

6) John Takes a Knife in His Torso – John Wick

The final fight scene of John Wick pits the Baba Yaga against the furious Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), determined to avenge the death of his son Iosef, with John and Viggo going mano a mano in the rain. When Viggo pulls out a knife, John manages to disarm his opponent by grabbing ahold of Viggo's arm and intentionally pulling the knife into his own torso, enabling John to break Viggo's arm, disarm the knife, and slay Viggo with it. It should go without saying that John's method of knife disarming is far from a medically advisable one.

With John's skill as an assassin, he is better positioned than most to know where and how deep a stab wound to the torso can be without being lethal. There are also indeed many recorded instances of people surviving stab wounds to the torso and other areas of the body that should have seemingly killed them. Nonetheless, John definitely rolls the dice on his own survival by stabbing himself to get hold of Viggo's knife, and it surely doesn't require firsthand experience to know that being stabbed in the gut is another of John Wick's most painful injuries.

[RELATED: John Wick Star Teases Surprising Connection Between Ballerina and "Baba Yaga"] 5) John's Is Tossed From His House as It Explodes – John Wick: Chapter 2

In John Wick: Chapter 2, John does his best to decline being pulled back into action by Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio.) However, with Santino carrying a marker signifying the favor John owes to him, he's not prepared to take no for an answer, and launches a grenade that blows up John's house and sends him flying out. John is fortunately unharmed in the destruction of his house, which is an extreme case of good luck indeed considering John's proximity to the blast when the grenade explodes.

With John being just a few feet away from the explosion that sends him soaring out onto his lawn, he'd realistically probably be looking at second-degree burns, at least. Moreover, the destruction of his house arguably also falls into the category of being John's most financially painful injury. Even with his evident wealth in retirement, John's been left homeless by Santino's actions, and while he could probably call in enough real estate favors to get a good deal as the Baba Yaga, it still wouldn't be much fun returning to the housing market under such circumstances.

4) John Gets Kicked Down the Rue Foyatier Staircase – John Wick: Chapter 4

The final showdown of John Wick: Chapter 4 is one of the franchise's most unforgettable action sequences, with John fighting his way to the top of the Rue Foyatier staircase in Paris, being kicked all the way down by the ruthless Chidi (Marko Zaror), and fighting his way back up again with the help of Donnie Yen's Caine. Still, John's fall down the staircase is a painful drop indeed. Worse still, John even gets slammed up against a lamp post by Chidi to finish his fall.

It's not impossible for John Wick or anyone else to survive a tumble down a staircase, even one as extended as the Rue Foyatier. However, John would have the constant worry of breaking his neck on the way down. Additionally, John takes quite a slam being thrown up against the lamp post by Chidi, and it can only be assumed that John struck the lamp post with his upper back, since it'd be extremely unlikely he'd remain conscious if he hit his head against it.

3) John Getting Hit by One Car After Another – John Wick: Chapter 4

One of the many major action sequences in John Wick: Chapter 4 sees the Baba Yaga fighting off Chidi and many other pursuing assassins in front of the Arc de Triumphe in Paris. With heavy traffic all around them, John and his opponents repeatedly find themselves dodging cars in one breath and being struck by one in the next. Some even get hit hard enough to be swept into the air like dolls, and this is another painful set of injuries John has to fight past in the John Wick franchise.

The fact that John never finds himself under the wheels of any of the cars smashing into him is at least a plus. Nevertheless, the fact that John and those of his enemies who survive the Arc de Triumphe battle walk away without so much as a broken leg is another area where the John Wick franchise demands a little suspension of disbelief.

2) John Falling From The Continental – John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

For as extended a fall as John Wick takes from the Rue Foyatier in John Wick: Chapter 4, his fall in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is a far more brutal one. After reaching a parlay with the High Table Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon), John's ally Winston (Ian McShane) is faced with the question of what to do with John himself. After a moment's thought, Winston determines that "he has to die," shooting at John repeatedly sending him falling from the roof of the Continental onto the street below.

The fact that John survives this fall is utterly miraculous. Not only is John falling onto solid concrete from a height of over two hundred feet, but he also tumbles from an awning and hits his back on a balcony rail on the opposite building before landing. John's survival might be one of those one-in-a-million instances of someone surviving falling from a tall building that pops up in the news every now and again, but it's definitely not a stunt anyone should try at home.

1) John Gets Shot by Caine in Their High Table Duel – John Wick: Chapter 4

John Wick: Chapter 4 reaches its climax with John and Caine forced to face one another in a High Table duel, John fighting for his freedom from the High Table and Caine determined to save his daughter. Both John and Caine take bullets from each other's dueling pistols, and ultimately, it ends in a draw of sorts with Caine defeating John while John takes out the sinister Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) to win his freedom. In the end, John succumbs to his gunshot wounds from Caine. Or does he?

That's been the big question since John Wick: Chapter 4's ambiguous ending. With Lionsgate being bullish on John Wick: Chapter 5 and even director Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves talking about John Wick: Chapter 5 and beyond, the Baba Yaga's apparent death is looking more and more likely to have been a hoax orchestrated by John with Caine's help. The fact that John pulled off faking his death with actual gunfire — at the hands of the blind Caine, no less — is as impressive a trick as John Wick has ever pulled off. However, it also called upon John Wick to put himself through more pain than ever, barring whatever his seemingly impending return in John Wick: Chapter 5 will force the Baba Yaga to endure.

The John Wick movies are available to stream on Hulu.

Military Dog Handler Rates 8 Military Dog Scenes In Movies And TV

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Terry Adams Jr., a former US Army working dog handler, rates eight military dogs in movies and television shows for realism. 

Adams breaks down various breeds of military working dogs, particularly the Belgian Malinois, in the search-and-apprehension scenes in "SEAL Team" S1E7 and E14, the explosive-detection dog in "Megan Leavey," and the guard dogs in "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum," with Keanu Reeves and Halle Berry. He looks at working dogs outside of the military, such as the narcotics-detection dog in "Breaking Bad" S4E12, starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul; and the German shepherd in "I Am Legend," who protects her owner — played by Will Smith — at all costs. He also explains the safety protocols and realities of dog handling during warfare, such as detecting weapons and explosives in "Max," and "NCIS" S10E18, and the realities of post-traumatic stress disorder among retired military working dogs in "Dog," starring Channing Tatum. 

Adams has six years of experience as a military working dog handler for the US Army, as well as 10 years of experience handling and training civilian dogs. He had three military combat deployments, all in Afghanistan. He is the founder and head trainer of Tactical K9, a facility for training civilian and military dogs. 

You can follow him here:

https://tacticalk9.Co/ 

https://www.Instagram.Com/tacticalk9approach/   

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