Many thanks to Ayako for tweeting the link!
Kinopoisk has posted an article on their visit to the John Wick set in December. The article is in Russian, contains a lot of details about the film and translates well with the google translator. Here are the highlights:
- Brief synopsis: Former assassain meets the love of his life and leaves the underworld to marry her. She becomes ill and dies. In a farewell letter she leaves him a dog, Daisy. He encounters the son of a former Russian mob boss and his friends who beat him, kill Daisy and steal his car. Wick tkes up his former life and hunts down his new enemies.
- From prooducer Barry Ivanik, we learn that they purchased the rights to the script a little over a year ago and immediately called Keanu Reeves. He was their first choice for the film based on his cult action films Speed, The Matrix and Point Break.
- A scene is shot in which Keanu runs with a rifle behind cars and shoots Russian mobsters. According to the article, the scene is shot without doubles and Keanu falls down stairs and is involved in three fights to take out mobsters.
- The whole film was shot in NYC and it was difficult to organize. Due to traffic and moving everything, they did a lot of shooting at night and on the weekends.
- During breaks after shooting a scene, Keanu went into tent to sit near the heater to stay warm. Keanu said he trained for the film from July to October. Keanu said: “I worked with a former policeman in Los Angeles and a master of Judo and Jujitsu to get ready for the role. I did all of the action scenes myself – the chase, shooting, and falling. My knees are not as flexible as they used to be – but the scenes were fun and gave an adrenaline rush. I understand the anger of the hero when they kill his dog and steal his favorite car. And the car is really cool. I have become attached to such vehicles, espeically my motorcycles.”
- In between takes, Keanu trains – he grabs his gun from the holster and shoots a fictional enemy – he does this over and over. Occasionally he takes a break and goes over to the heater to warm up.
You can read the entire article along with the bits on the other actors here.