Legendary martial artist Jet Li almost performed his mind-bending moves in the reality-bending movie The Matrix.
The film and its sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, starred Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Laurence Fishburne.
Li was offered to join the cast in the Wachowskis’ latter two films as the Oracle’s bodyguard Seraph (which ultimately went to Collin Chou), but declined.
Now, before you bend into a back-flip, slow down.
The 55 year old reveals that he was concerned that his intellectual property would be misused as a result of technology (no, the irony is not lost).
“I realized the Americans wanted me to film for three months but be with the crew for nine. And for six months, they wanted to record and copy all my moves into a digital library,” the Chinese star told Abacus News. “By the end of the recording, the right to these moves would go to them. I was thinking: I’ve been training my entire life. And we martial artists could only grow older. Yet they could own [my moves] as an intellectual property forever. So I said I couldn’t do that.”
Sounds like he chose the right pill…
