Laurence Fishburne recalled his role as Morpheus at the Marrakech Film Festival, which led him to remember his intense training routine for the classic science-fiction film.
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“We were essentially the first Western actors to work in the Hong Kong style, and that’s why [martial arts choreographer] Yuen Woo-ping was very worried that we wouldn’t be able to [handle it],” the actor said.
He remembers that Woo-ping trained the actors to the point of getting them on the level of “professional athletes”.
“It was in the middle of that training that I realized why professional athletes get paid so much money — because professional athletes are always in pain,” Laurence Fishburne joked at the festival, according to Variety.
“It’s not pain sometimes, like when you go to the gym and feel sore for one day. They feel pain all the time,” he emphasized. He says he still feels the effects of the training in his body.
“Each one of us had two trainers, and they made us work very, very hard!”
Laurence Fishburne played Morpheus in “Matrix” (1999) and in the sequels “Matrix Reloaded” and “Matrix Revolutions” (2003). The star did not participate in the fourth film, released in 2021.
Photos: HBO Max Reproduction. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
