Keanu Reeves Had To Push For The Pencil Fight In John Wick 2
John Wick is basically invincible. Over the course of his action franchise, Keanu Reeves' hitman has proven his impossible toughness by dispatching wave after wave of faceless thugs with the distinct John Wick gun-fu for which he's so well-known. And whereas the first movie showed at least some deference to plot and humanizing its titular assassin, as the saga has progressed, he's become much more of a one-dimensional badass.
None of which is all that surprising. Franchise director Chad Stahelski is, after all, a stunt performer and choreographer, which means the action sequences were always going to take precedence. Both Stahelski and his co-director on the first movie, David Leitch, have previously said the right things about directing, telling ActionElite.com that "the good, big-budget action directors know that action is just another part of the process, like acting and performances." But in reality, the John Wick movies have slowly become showcases for the balletic gun-fu scenes they conjure up.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. After "John Wick," Stahelski took over solo directing duties for the follow-up and doubled down on the central character's pre-eminent fighting skills, synthesizing the most undeniably cool parts of the first entry. As he told iNews, when planning the sequel, he and Reeves simply decided to not "worry about plot" and "just stay with the guy, open up the mythology, push the action even further." And as "John Wick: Chapter 2" came together, they found that the mythology actually informed the action — especially with one specific fight scene.
Myth to reality
The action movie majesty of the "John Wick" series has always been its main draw, but it's made even more effective by the mythology behind the titular character. Baba Yaga, the boogeyman, is an assassin so feared by the criminal underworld that even the most heartless crime lords tremble at the mention of his name. In "John Wick," it was Russian mafia boss Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist) who tells his son that Wick is "the one you send to kill the f***ing boogeyman" and that he once saw Wick "kill three men in a bar with a pencil." For the sequel, Stahelski and the team needed to remind people why Baba Yaga is so feared. That meant kicking off proceedings with a similar speech, this time delivered by Abram Tarasov (Peter Stormare), Viggo's brother, who repeats the pencil line.
For Keanu Reeves, whose dedication to performing almost all of Wick's fight scenes and stunts borders on obsessive, he simply had to see that particular aspect of his character's mythology in action the second time around. He relayed how he was adamant that the pencil had to make it into "John Wick: Chapter 2," via Page Six: "Chad is so interested in not just action, but the character in the action, and what's the storytelling. In the second [film], I really fought for getting the pencil fight. It was talked about in the first one and I was like, 'Guys, we gotta do a pencil fight!'"
With Reeves pushing for some pencil action to make it into the movie, Stahelski went ahead and planned a now-famous sequence in which Wick gruesomely dispatches two assassins with the writing utensil in the entrance to a subway station.
Show don't tell
Stahelski has spoken about wanting to convey the skills of John Wick in as believable a way as possible. Part of that has involved intense training for Keanu Reeves, allowing him to perform most of the on-screen action, then using long, unbroken takes during filming to enhance the believability that Reeves is actually as capable as Wick. The director told iNews:
"We find that the best way to fake being good is to actually be good [...] It's why I use so many long takes. I want the audience to know it's Keanu doing this stuff. There's that video of him on YouTube shooting live rounds and he's not faking it; he's actually shooting, and he's nailing targets. He's the nicest guy in the world, but if he had to? I'm sure he would be able to kill you with a pencil pretty quickly."
That focus on enhancing the believability of the fight scenes is all-important when the overall premise of a near-invincible assassin who can fend off armies of combatants is, in and of itself, pretty unbelievable. By actually showing John Wick using a pencil to kill, the director is extending that approach to the world and mythology of the film, actually showing you what Wick is rumored to be capable of.
By this point, the character of John Wick has more than proven the truth of the mythology surrounding him, and for the upcoming "John Wick: Chapter 4," it seems Stahelski has thrown out the standard formula in an effort to try something new. But you can bet there'll still be non-stop, highly-choreographed, and expertly-executed violence, which should make for an epic face-off between Wick and Donnie Yen.