What Happens When Keanu Reeves, Keke Palmer, Aziz Ansari, and Seth Rogen Get in a Room Together?

As Keanu Reeves embarks on the promotional tour for his newest movie, Good Fortune, which opens wide October 17, the actor is reflecting on the good fortune that was his seminal 1999 blockbuster, The Matrix, written and directed by the Wachowskis.

In an exclusive roundtable interview hosted by Esquire (streaming above), Reeves was joined his fellow Good Fortune collaborators Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer, and Aziz Ansari, the latter of whom wrote, starred in, produced, and directed the new movie. A comedy with elements of magical realism, Good Fortune follows a guardian angel (Reeves) who tries to convince a down-on-his-luck gig worker (Ansari) that money isn't everything by switching his life with that of a self-made millionaire (Rogen). Palmer costars as Elena, an idealistic young woman who befriends Ansari's male protagonist as she unionizes her fellow employees at a hardware store.

Mired in themes about hardship and envy, Good Fortune explores the modern gig economy and the widening income gap that divides communities. The idea for Good Fortune started with Ansari, who cooked up a dramatic film about two guys in Los Angeles living two very different lives. "One guy made a bunch of money in tech or whatever. Has this giant house, pool, the whole thing. And the other guy's the guy that's been screwed by the last 20 years. Student debt, maybe lost his job during Covid. He's struggling to get by, and it's a frustration that is widespread right now, in what the country is at the moment. What happens when their worlds collide?"

At some point, angels came into the frame, which transformed the movie into a comedy. "Eventually I got to the place where I thought the idea of this angel coming and intervening in his life and trying to show him that having the life of the other guy isn't all it's cracked up to be, and him rejecting that idea, would be very fun."

"I find personally that levity is a really good way to make things real," said Palmer, who said Ansari's tonal shift was a good choice. "Nothing is just one beat all the time. At some point, you're going to laugh. At some point, it's going to break. That's just the rhythm of things. But whenever something really hits me, I feel like it really does hit me through that veil."

After an extended chat about shooting at a shady Denny's in L.A. and guardian angels, Palmer posed a question to Reeves about the making of The Matrix, asking him if he knew it would be a hit from the start. Reeves responded, "No idea."

"I loved it, and I know that when we made it, it was really special," Reeves explained. "But you never know how an audience is going to react."

Palmer pressed on, inquiring, "How quickly did your life change?" Reeves said that the movie initially performed poorly in test screenings, which suggested to him that perhaps the movie would be a disaster.

"There were some test screenings beforehand that didn't go so well," Reeves revealed, which prompted Seth Rogen to react in horror ("oh, God"). "The directors made some adjustments, the studio had some notes, et cetera. It was still not formed. It still had a process to go through. So having that going into the next step of the release really set up [how much] we didn't know how this is going to go."

When Rogen said that The Matrix, for all its sci-fi elements, is actually "simple" to follow and had all the makings of a successful blockbuster, Reeves pointed out that there's no such guarantees in moviemaking. "You know as filmmakers," Reeves said, "just starting from an assembly and you just chisel, you film, you make it, you create the thing. You go through a process. And that film went through that process. So we didn't know."

Reeves then added that a lot of the movie's bizarre experimentation—such as the memorable "bullet time" slow-motion effects—added to his experience in a positive way. "Being a a part of it was really cool, to do all the technology. The maverick aspect of these visual effects that went into the film, it's cool."

Standing up, Reeves elaborated on the complexity that went into The Matrix, all from his point of view as an actor. He even breaks down his iconic "bullet dodge" stunt, re-creating the process for his fellow Good Fortune family.

"You're doing something that's never been done. They've got all of these still cameras right there, you've got the wire on the harness in the back, you've been doing training, and you know the bullets are going to come this way and you've got to move in real time. You can't move slow. And so you work out the choreography. You're like, 'What would look cool?' I'm like, 'Well, what if I throw this arm and then I go back?' But you wanted the thing that's unnatural to be super perfect, and you want to get just—so your back is perfectly lateral to the ground."

Added Reeves, "That to me became a popcorn moment. It was when the director showed us, they put a sizzle together when we went on a little hiatus, and it was just like, that's when the popcorn goes, Whah! You're like, 'What did I just see?' "

The conversation ended with Ansari reflecting on the importance of original movies like Good Fortune competing in today's theatrical box office. "It really plays into what Keanu was just talking about, a communal experience," Ansari said. "I remember being in college watching Anchorman and laughing and going crazy with everybody. I remember being at the premiere of Pineapple Express and just having a blast. We all love the theatrical experience. ... So I'm glad we got to make this movie, and I'm glad that we're putting it in theaters. It was always theatrical. I never envisioned it not being in a theater."

Chiming in, Rogen added, "Especially with comedy. I think, to laugh together, to see a comedy in the theater is so much better than seeing one alone. I think it is, like, people don't realize how much I think they're missing when you don't see a comedy with other people."

Good Fortune opened to positive reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6 and opens wide in theaters October 17. Stay tuned for development on the sequel, Good Fortune Reloaded.

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