Keanu Reeves Reveals Details on 'Good Fortune' Set Injury That ...

Keanu Reeves has revealed more details about the dramatic injury that caused his kneecap to crack “like a potato chip.”

The veteran star took a seat opposite Stephen Colbert on The Late Show on Monday night to promote his new book, The Book of Elsewhere, a novel co-written with China Miéville. The subject turned to his most recent acting gig playing an angel in Aziz Ansari’s forthcoming Lionsgate comedy Good Fortune. It was on the set of the film that Reeves fractured his kneecap, which was confirmed by Ansari during an appearance at CinemaCon in April.

“I was filming a scene with Aziz Ansari and Seth Rogen and we were in a cold plunge. I was loving it, I was standing there, and we finish the scene, and you know when you’re cold and you’re [shuffling]? I had a bathing suit and a towel, and you put it over your head and you do the cold shuffle?” Reeves explained to Colbert. “I’m doing the cold shuffle in this room that had protective carpets down and then, just here, there was like a little pocket, and my foot got caught in the pocket in the shuffle, and then I went [down], but [my knee] didn’t follow, and then, in slow motion, I went falling.”

The actor, who has tested the physical limits of his body many times over while filming the blockbuster franchise John Wick, then said he tried to catch himself but couldn’t recover in time. “My arms came out, but then my knee failed because it’s got some stuff, and I spiked… and my patella, kneecap, cracked like a potato chip.”

It didn’t take long for his knee to swell up, Reeves continued before quipping, “Comedy’s hard, man.”

Good Fortune finds Ansari starring as a man who is down on his luck and struggling to make ends meet. He takes on gig work as a task rabbit of sorts, which eventually leads him to the home of a wealthy man named Jeff, played by Seth Rogen, who lives large in a modern mansion with all the trappings of success, like cars, a pool, a disco club in the basement and plenty of wild L.A.-style parties. Ansari helps him out with a series of tasks — from fixing his pool to finding him a shaman for an ayahuasca journey — only to fall further into tough times when his car gets towed from the Denny’s parking lot. To his surprise, he is then met by an angel named Gabriel, played by Reeves, who turns up to help save him and show him the true meaning of life.

At CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Ansari praised Reeves for his ability to recover from the injury and continue filming despite being on crutches. “Poor guy, he was such a trooper, and he fractured his kneecap and continued to do all the scenes,” said the stand-up star turned writer and director. “He actually is an angel. He’s been pretending to be human for all these other roles.”

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