Keanu Reeves only says 380 words in the 2 hours and 49 minutes of John Wick: Chapter 4. John Wick is battling for his life for the majority of the movie, so it makes sense that he doesn’t speak much. In the follow-up, almost a third of Reeves’ speech is made up of the word “yeah.”
But it was deliberate for John Wick to have no conversation. The character’s lines were condensed by Reeves and director Chad Stahelski, who reportedly “stripped out roughly half the dialogue written for his character in the initial script.”
Keanu Reeves, JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
Wick was expected to speak a lot in the sequence where he negotiates the terms of his duel with the evil Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard). Wick initially provided half of the dialogue in that scene. However, Reeves edited out significant portions of that conversation, leaving Wick in the scene with only a few one-word answers, such as “pistol” and “no quarter.”
The longest line of dialogue delivered by Reeves as Wick in the action is when Wick tells Hiroyuki Sanada’s character, “You and I left a good life behind a long time ago, my friend,” during a scene at the Osaka Continental.
In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, the movie’s co-writer Michael Finch said, “It’s a shock when you work with him how dedicated he is to not speaking.”
Reeves puts everything he’s got into this role of John Wick, and it’s pretty amazing to witness him in those epic action sequences. He simply has such a deep understanding of the Wick character, and Wick’s reluctance to talk undoubtedly contributes to his personality. I adore the typical John Wick one-word answers!
