Actor Carrie Anne Moss experienced a career boost when she starred in the first groundbreaking Matrix film. But doing the sci-fi feature took more of a toll on her than she might have been prepared to endure.
It took Carrie Anne Moss years to recover from ‘The Matrix’
Moss wasn’t the original choice for the Wachowskis’ blockbuster Matrix franchise. Several actors were tested for the role of Trinity in the first sci-fi film, including star Jada Pinkett Smith. But Pinkett Smith asserted that she and the film’s co-star star Keanu Reeves lacked chemistry.
The Wachowskis would eventually find their ideal Trinity with Moss, who had the right amount of chemistry with Reeves for the film. But the hardest part for Moss’ screentest was perhaps the stunts she had to perform to prove she was right for the role.
“The first day of which was 3 hours of running, kung fu and taping all these different fights. A really intense 3 hours of just brutal training from which I couldn’t walk for days,” Moss once said according to Matrixfans.net.
Moss had to continue doing physically taxing stunts during the actual filming of The Matrix. There were certain scenes she did in the film, like her famous cartwheel sequence, that reduced her to tears. But even when a decent amount of time went by after doing The Matrix, Moss found she hadn’t fully healed.
“It took me years to physically recover from The Matrix, truly. And I’d like to have my challenges be emotional as an actor. I love that. Make me go there. I’ve gone there physically,” Moss once said according to Black Film.
Carrie Anne Moss vowed to never do action films again after ‘The Matrix’
Because of what she’d been through with The Matrix, Moss made a conscious decision to avoid films where she might’ve experienced similar stunts.
“I had said after The Matrix that I would never make an action film again,” she said.
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She broke her vow, however, when she was offered the role in Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible 3. Moss felt the role was different enough from her Trinity character despite the fact that the film was heavy in action.
“It just felt like the right thing to do, so I think things sort of come your way and you make your choices. It’s very different than Trinity, so I can’t say that I did. I might’ve had a few moments where I was like, ‘What am I doing, doing another action film?’ But life is interesting. Never say never,” she said.
However, there were certain benefits to doing all of those action sequences that she was proud to experience.
“As hard as it is, because it’s hard to learn new things, because when you’re doing an action movie, there’s usually something that they’re doing that’s new. I had to learn to ride a motorcycle for The Matrix, I had to learn how to be on the wire. This time I’m learning some things that I can’t tell you what I’m learning because I’m not allowed to tell you anything. But I’m learning a couple things that I hadn’t learned before,” she said.
Carrie Anne Moss once shared the one scene in ‘The Matrix’ she couldn’t do
Moss was willing to push through her physical limits in order to perform many harrowing scenes in The Matrix and its sequels. But there was a scene she confided she couldn’t manage to do, and had to be modified in the movie.
“In the first one, there was one scene where they had me in a kind of a stiletto, and I couldn’t do the scene. I had auditioned with that scene, and then suddenly there we are on the day shooting it, and I was unsteady,” Moss told The Guardian not too long ago.
To remedy the take, Moss just had to change footwear.
“It was the whole thing in the nightclub, where I’m whispering in the guy’s ear, and I’m supposed to be really grounded and strong, and yet I could barely stand straight. And so they took those off and gave me a boot with a nice solid heel,” she said.
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