#The Matrix Resurrections Star Jessica Henwick Helps Bring The Matrix Back To Life [Interview]

You were thinking of leaving the industry and then got a call about “The Matrix Resurrections,” right?

It was my agent. I was in a weird space and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I think I was going through a quarter life crisis, and basically I’ve been acting for 14 years now and I just took a second to think, ‘Am I doing this because I still want to do it and I love it, or am I doing this because it’s what I’m used to?’ And so, I stopped and I decided to get out of town and I bought a one-way ticket to France. And then, I just started walking.

I just started hiking and I was halfway through a 40-day hike. I turned on my phone, it was near my birthday and I wanted to tell everyone I was alive, and I got an email saying, ‘Would you like to audition for the Matrix?’ And I just said no, because I hadn’t finished the hike and I hadn’t come to an answer yet of what I wanted to do in my life. I turned it down.

I finished the hike. And that’s when I got a call from my agent saying, ‘Lana still hasn’t filled out the role. Are you interested?’ I made a self tape, flew to America a couple days later, tested with Yahya and had the phone call from Lana a few days after that.

So, after “The Matrix Resurrections,” were you rejuvenated and want to continue acting?

No, I mean, it’s a long — that thing was such a journey emotionally. It was a part of it, but I think I came to that decision without the script. And then it was just nice that this was the first thing that appeared to me after.

What was your first impression of Bugs on the page and how to play her?

I loved Bugs. I think she’s really empathetic and really easy to come to grips with. In my eyes, she’s the audience’s eyes, she’s kind of the window into the new film. When I first read the script, I was blown away by a few things: How long it was, how complicated it was. It’s Lana’s typical style of filmmaking. She’s talking about huge themes here. But also how different it was. I know that the [co-]writer has done an interview where he said it kind of breaks the rule of the blockbuster, and I think that’s true. It definitely doesn’t follow a standard format that we’re used to for this genre. It’s quite unusual, the structure.

I’ve heard it called a coda to the first movie.

Yeah. I think it would’ve been really easy for us to just come and try and recreate the original and just do that because it worked, but we all knew coming into this that the original was perfect and should not be touched. And so, this had to be something that’s paying homage to it, but is also very new and fresh.