Keanu Reeves details gruesome injury on set of new Aziz Ansari comedy: ‘It cracked like a potato chip’
Keanu Reeves has shared gruesome details about the injury he suffered on the set of his forthcoming movie, Good Fortune.
Directed by and starring comedian and actor Aziz Ansari, the new comedy, led by Reeves, also features Sandra Oh, Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer. The plot of the film is being kept tightly under wraps and a release date has not yet been announced.
Reeves, 59, was photographed walking with crutches and an ice pack wrapped to his left knee earlier this year. Ansari later revealed that the John Wick star had fractured his kneecap after tripping on a rug in his movie trailer.
During a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Reeves elaborated on the story.
“I was filming a scene with Aziz Ansari and Seth Rogen and we were in a cold plunge,” he recalled. “I was loving it, I was standing there, and we finish the scene, and you know when you’re cold and you’re [shuffling]? I had a bathing suit and a towel, and you put it over your head and you do the cold shuffle?”
The Matrix actor continued: “I’m doing the cold shuffle in this room that had protective carpets down and then, just here, there was like a little pocket, and my foot got caught in the pocket in the shuffle, and then I went [down], but [my knee] didn’t follow.
“And then, in slow motion, I went falling. My arms came out, but then my knee failed because it’s got some stuff, and I spiked it. And my patella – kneecap – cracked like a potato chip,” he added, causing the host and audience to groan.
While Reeves admitted he initially thought he was fine, he said he knew something was wrong when “my knee was blowing up.” “Comedy’s hard, man,” he quipped.
When asked by Colbert whether cracking his kneecap was the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, Reeves responded: “No, the two-level fusion of my spine was.”
Recalling the procedure, which was completed just before he began training for The Matrix, Reeves remembered: “I was like losing feeling, and I was kind of starting to fall in the shower, and I went to see this doctor, and he was like, ‘We need to do surgery right now.’”
He said that his spinal cord was squeezed between portions of his spinal discs that were splintered and compressed.
Asked how he had hurt himself, Reeves said: “So many things, motorcycle accidents, racquetball.”
Reeves shared that while filming The Matrix, he had to wear a contraption around his neck to ensure his spine could fuse properly, which required production to reschedule his fight scenes.
“But all’s well that ends well,” he concluded.