Laurence Fishburne was already a well-respected actor before taking on the role of Morpheus in The Matrix. He received an Academy Award nomination for What’s Love Got to Do With It, and starred in movies like Boyz n the Hood and Apocalypse Now, a film he made when he was just 14 years old. But it was the role of Morpheus that truly turned the esteemed actor into a sci-fi icon. In a recent interview, Fishburne revealed that shooting The Matrix left him in terrible pain, pretty much all the time. Here’s what he told Variety about his experiences making the film at the recent Marrakech Film Festival:
We were essentially the first Western actors to work in the Hong Kong style. And so [martial arts choreographer] Yuen Woo-ping was very concerned that we weren’t going to be able to [pull it off]. So he trained us really hard — training us like professional athletes. And it was in the middle of that training I realized why they pay professional athletes so much money: Because professional athletes are always in pain. Not in pain sometimes — like when you go to the gym and then you’re sore for a day. They’re in pain all the time.
Fishburne and his co-stars in The Matrix were essentially guinea pigs for what was a new style of action movies. New for American cinema, at least. Pain or not, the gamble clearly paid off. And Fishburne obviously felt it was worth being perpetually sore, as he returned to play Morpheus in further sequels. We also imagine he got a nice raise, which likely helped.
Despite being filmed over 25 years ago now, Fishburne says he still has muscle memory from the grueling training. He said, “It’s all — I mean, it’s still in the body. We each had two trainers, and they worked us really, really hard!” Maybe this is why he never ended up playing Luke Cage for Marvel? We believe he could have had some post-Matrix trauma. After that experience, we’d never want to hang on a wire again either.