Has an actor or actress ever walked off of a set because of how disgusted they were about a scene they were asked to do?
Jet Li walked away from Hollywood’s Matrix after he found out they wanted to own ‘him’.
Jet Li was already well known among kung fu cinema fans of the 80’s and 90’s, but got his big break into the US mainstream with Lethal Weapon 4, Romeo Must die, and Hero. He was rumored to be in The Matrix trilogy too… but then disappeared from Hollywood.
Decades later, Jet Li revealed why he turned down a major role in The Matrix and left Hollywood:
Jet Li had the chance to join one of the biggest franchises in Hollywood circa the early 2000s when the Wachowski siblings offered him the part of Seraph in The Matrix “Reloaded.” The role had originally been written as a woman and offered to Michele Yeoh, but she turned it down because of scheduling conflicts. Li was the Wachowski’s first choice for Seraph after they switched the character’s gender, but Li also turned the role down.
Over a decade later, Li has finally revealed the reason why he made the choice (via Abacus).
“It was a commercial struggle for me,” Li said, “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. By the end of the recording, the right to these moves would go to them.”
Jet Li Rejected Starring in ‘The Matrix’ Sequels Because He Didn’t Want to Lose Ownership of His Martial Arts Moves.
I’m super critical of various Hollywood practices, straight up trying to create a digital copy of a famed actor and then discarding the actor from any ownership is something I couldn’t even make up in my imagination, but that’s what ‘they’ tried to do.
By Xolimedia (Self-Media Writer)