So lovely to meet you and congratulations on another amazing film.
We are obviously delighted that Winston is back.
Can you just tell us how that character has changed over the many years now
and where do we find him?
In Chapter 4? The series has grown over,
you know, four episodes.
Well, now you got five with the new movie Ballerina, which is the female spinoff,
which is a retrofitted between John Wick three and John Wick four.
You know, this one, I think Winston's
Winston's life is suddenly
changed around.
I mean, the other three, he's been very much like fitting in with John's.
And, you know, John, we're fitting in, helping him, we think, on his side.
But suddenly in this in the first 20 minutes of number
four, Winston's life is turned upside down by then.
So suddenly it's on him.
So that's when I'm he's fully behind John
Or is he? You don't know.
I mean, that's the nice thing.
It's constantly shifts, you know.
I mean, and what's his relationship to John
and you still don't know, in a sense,
which is kind of intriguing.
I like to keep it that way, and so does Chad Stahelski [director]
I don't think it had been you know, I don't think also
the series would have been as rich or successful.
if Chad hadn't directed all four.
You know, I mean, because you do have a sense of continuity.
And I think it helps Keanu Reeves as well.
And also well, because they've done
you know, they they go back 25 years and stunts together.
That's why those sequences are.
So if you like,
beautifully violent,
you know, 20 minutes of uninterrupted action,
which you don't get in normal movies, you know.
You also have that
sense of kind of a classic Western in the sense
that John Wick is like on a bounce.
He's like, wanted dead or alive, $26 million for the most, you know,
the most dangerous man in the world usually kill bad people.
That doesn't matter. Bad people come out for him.
But it's like a modern Western, you know, they're all out there for the bounty,
But I can kill him, whatever.
And that's why there's a certain fanboy thing to it, almost.
It's a pleasure to find you, Mr. Wick. You know, whatever.
So there's a lot of layers going on.
But it is a movie, and I think that's, you know, the end.
It's we're not dealing with a real life.
We're dealing with, you know, 2-3 hours of taking people away.
I think this does take people away from real life into a into a terrifically
sort of
fantasy
world of violence and, well, if you like.
But honestly, all those words, compassion, loyalty, who fits with
who and can anybody we really trusted in the end, you know, absolute.
And we have to go back to talk about Keanu Reeves himself.
I mean, we're going to talk about Keanu Reeves himself.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
Hey, you know how he attacks those sequences.
Obviously so impressive.
But also the quieter moments with Winston as well.
Just how impressive is he to to witness and.
Well, okay, Well,
it's it's funny now because, you know, we work on the script together,
the scenes you always get together a couple of days before of that
the dialogs and talk of we have done that since the beginning
so it's a purely it's a natural process, you know, talking with Chad and Keanu.
So when you get on there, you know. Exactly.
And then you just have nuances, whatever.
And we work very well together. He's great.
He's just a really good guy.
Keanu's Great strength, I think is a sort of an honesty and a simplicity.
Winston and yourself have some of the best lines in the film I like there.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Just how much do you enjoy his dialog?
And actually the way he commands some very difficult situation.
I love him.
Since the beginning, Derek Kolstad
, who wrote the original script,
wrote this anything about a character and we just, you know,
And then you wrote number two
and then Shay Hatten, a sort of taken over in number three and number four.
But they've continued.
Sometimes they get a little
when we talk about it, they get a little they remind me a little bit
like I'm coming out of a sort of, you know, Dickens novel.
I mean, no, I mean, no, that gets very English, very bad.
But that's okay because he should be overwritten to begin with.
Then you strip it away and you keep the pithy lines that mean something.
So it's.
Yeah. And it's a good character.
And Jesse James related to John Wayne.
Nobody knows really who is he?
Is he is he a good guy?
Yeah, I think he is the bad guy.
He shot John in episode three, but I always insist
he knew John was wearing a bulletproof vest, so there's no problem.
And is he part of the high table?
No, I don't think so.
Well, you never know.
I mean, you've got to keep those balls in the air.
It's not easy.
And also,
the Bowery King relationship with
Laurence Fish, Boogie
said, no, it's it's a complicated show.
They got a lot of balls in the air.
I do think it's great. I mean, I loveBill Skarsgård.
I love Bill's crazy villain in this, you know, you're dealing with.
That's why the beginning doesn't say anything, because, you know,
it's like saying, how do you how do you talk to a mad man?
You don't you just zip and go.
It's like saying, Sharon, shut up.
You shut up. You know, whatever.
Absolutely. Oh, my goodness.
And actually, the humor that you touch on there in either.
Yeah, I wanted to ask him for the whole thing,
but without that, what a lot of these movies.
But I you know, when they try to be funny, I'd hate them when they obviously
it's like saying the snappy kind of I don't think it suffers from that.
It's not trying to be funny.
Certain lines come out which are funny in the situations,
but it doesn't have that kind of No.
Now we're going to be funny to temper all of that.
No, it has a continuity to it, which you have to have in a film like this.
Yeah, exactly. Feels like that.
And the line that you say you go out there and have fun, go on and have fun.
Yeah.
Will you just kill him, please? You know, please, just kill him.
Stop this messing around.
Can we look back over the series as well?
I wanted to know what some of your favorite memories and moments
are of working with John Wick.
All of them at a bad time.
Only the only bad times we've had alike I've physically on the set of
because Chad loves to shoot at night,
constantly at night
and you know, the night in Paris
in November
30 degrees.
Pissing down with rain
is a suburb, not even in Pari... in a suburb outside of Paris, 30 miles out,
you know, in a sort of a car park with green screen.
You think this is a sad way to finish a big, expensive, wonderful movie.
But that's the other and everybody
goes, We're surrounded, everybody, thank you for the 101 wonderful days.
And then you drive back to Paris in Russia at six in the morning.
I mean, it's like you go, No, but it said it was a hell of a way to finish movie.
It was good. Okay.
And any other favorite memories from, say, 1 to 3 you?
Your favorite memories
when a movie comes out and this guy's successful when you're here
and when they go, there's going to be another one.
And then you go, Oh, I'm going to be another one.
And you go, Yeah, yeah, that's good, because these are the same people.
I don't think it would have been the same if it had been like another director
or another crew, because it's been the same cinematographer for three,
the same director for, for produce assistant producers.
You know, Erica Lee and Basil Iwanyk have been with it since the beginning.
So there's a certain thing to be said for continuity and everybody gets on.
Yeah, it's it's been a it's been a it's been a happy ride.
And what is it about John Wick films that just keep bringing audiences back?
They're rather good?
They're rather good and they're, you know, 3 hours of entertainment of
of take you way away from whatever.
That's what films are about.
It's not trying to be a slice of life, is not trying to be anything
else and entertainment and give you a bit about,
you know, about people in this situation who you're never likely to meet.
I mean, that's the whole point of making movies of this kind of a movie.
I mean, I just love movies, all kinds of movies.
But this kind of a movie is spectacular.
You know, it's it's seriously big, large movie making on an intimate basis
because there's those intimate moments in it, you know?
But what is weird when you're making
think is going to be on a big IMAX screen, you know the place to see it.
Absolutely.
Well, thank you so much and a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you.