Prime Video’s new anthology series Secret Level adapts more than 15 beloved games for the small screen, with plenty of its characters played by a star-studded cast. Among them is John Wick actor Keanu Reeves, who appears in the epic Armored Core episode.
Speaking to GamesRadar+ about how they secured the Hollywood legend, creator Tim Miller and executive producer Dave Wilson say it barely took any convincing thanks to Reeves’ love of their Netflix show Love, Death and Robots.
“We haven’t worked with him before, although I’d met him briefly,” Miller explains. “He is a huge animation fan, and he came down to Blur [Studios] to talk to me about a movie, another movie entirely and said, ‘What I really want to talk about is Love, Death and Robots. Can you tell me all about it? I love animation.’
“I said, ‘Well, we’re doing this other thing. Would you want to be in it?’ And he said, ‘Fuck yeah.’ I said, ‘Do you have anything in particular you want to play?’ And he’s like, ‘No, just put me in coach,’ essentially. So I asked Dave, ‘If you were to cast Keanu Reeves in the show, what character would he be?’ and at first, Dave thought I was joking that Keanu Reeves wanted to be in the show.”
However, Wilson admits that he remembers the conversation going a little differently. “[Miller] dictates into his phone, like that character from Hacks, and so you get these weird messages that don’t quite make sense. I got this text, ‘Hey, do we have anything for piano?’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ And then I realized and then, yes, I didn’t believe it.” To help convince him, Miller sent a video of Reeves at the studio, leaving Wilson to fret about who he could play.
“Keanu actually came on, it was quite late in the series, and we had all the artwork up on the walls,” Wilson recalls. “So there weren’t that many episodes left to cast, and so then I would start getting videos from other actors, and I’m like, ‘Tim, I don’t have any roles left.'”
The pair have so many good things to say about Reeves too, who Wilson says is the “nicest” person ever. “You hear all the stories of how wonderful Keanu is, but often, it’s just a hype machine. And I can tell you without any exaggeration, he is the nicest person to work with. I mean, we only shoot for a day or two usually, but he shows up, prepped, ready to go. I think he shot for 13 hours straight. He’s just a fabulous human being.”
Reeves isn’t the only star in Secret Level’s cast either, with Arnold Schwarzenegger voicing a character in the New World episode as well. Kevin Hart, Gabriel Luna, Ariana Greenblatt, Emily Swallow, and Claudia Doumit all also have parts in the anthology series, but Miller admits they weren’t able to find roles for everybody.
“There was one British actor that I said we want to be in the show and he goes, ‘Yeah.’ And then I had lunch with him and and I told him, I said, ‘You know, we just don’t have a role in this season.’ He did a whole thing where he said, just pretended to be super disappointed, and I filmed it for Dave, ‘I’m so upset and I drove all the way across town because Tim promised me this role.’ It was quite funny. It became a thing. But well, but next season, we’ll get even more.”
Miller adds: “Just like in a slice of any profession or world, there’s a lot of people in the movie business that love games and so they want to, if given the opportunity to be in something that’s interesting, they would love to be. I didn’t have much trouble convincing anybody to do it.”
Secret Level is released on Amazon Prime Video on December 10, with additional episodes released until December 17. For more, check out our guides to the best shows on Amazon Prime Video and our round-up of all the upcoming video game adaptations you need to know about.
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