Keanu Reeves lovingly wanted all of the “John Wick: Chapter 4” stuntmen to remember just how many times they died during the making of the blockbuster action movie. A new report from The New York Times about the making of the sequel’s unforgettable action scenes includes a detail about Reeves gifting the film’s stunt crew with t-shirts that had the number of deaths each stunt person faced in the movie. For some of the stunt crew, that number was above 20.
Why are there so many death sequences for one stunt person? It’s because stunt performers were reused in numerous scenes in “John Wick: Chapter 4.” The production used 35 stunt workers, many of whom had repeated deaths in the scene, for the instant classic staircase fight, in which Reeves’ John Wick fights bad guys as he races up the 222 steps leading to the Sacré-Coeur Basilica (only to be pushed back down to the bottom and have to do it all over again).
“It’s like, of course that’s what you want,” fight coordinator Jeremy Marinas told The Times about the moment director Chad Stahelski told him about the staircase scene. “You want 100 guys falling down the stairs and you want me to make every reaction and fall different. Of course you do. It was like we were just another day at work.”
“We all know how hard it is just to walk up stairs when we don’t want to,” Marinas added, “Just to think about how well Keanu — not John Wick — Keanu was able to do shooting upwards while stepping. It’s hard enough to be a marksman on flat ground.”
According to The New York Times, the staircase battle required seven night shoots. Each stuntman was probably “killed” four or five times, and “at the end of the shoot, Reeves made T-shirts for the stunt performers emblazoned with the number of times they were slain throughout the entire film.”
Stahelski went on to say that Reeves did every stunt involving John Wick ascending the staircase. When it came to the 44-second fall down the stairs, stunt double Vincent Bouillon came in useful.
“That look John Wick gives when he looks at his watch and actually looks up the staircase, I think that’s maybe 50 percent John Wick and 50 percent Keanu Reeves going, ‘Ugh, Stahelski did it to me again,’” Stahelski said of filming the scene. “You got to suffer. That’s what’s fun about John Wick. He suffers and he keeps going.”
T-shirts aren’t the only thing Reeves gave his “John Wick: Chapter 4” stunt squad. According to People magazine, Reeves celebrated the end of production on the film in 2021 by gifting his four-man stunt squad personalised Rolex Submariner watches as a thank you for their hard work on the upcoming action tentpole. Bruce Concepcion, Jeremy Marinas, Dave Camarillo, and Li Qiang made up Reeves’ stunt squad for the film.
Per People magazine: “The inside of each watch was engraved with personal messages to each individual from the actor. Marinas shared a look at the watches in his Instagram Stories, calling it the ‘best wrap gift ever’ and revealing his watch read ‘The John Wick Five’ along with the message, ‘Jeremy Thank you Keanu JW4 2021.’”