ComingSoon spoke with John Wick director Chad Stahelski and Wick Is Pain producer Josh Oreck of Narrator about the new documentary that chronicles how the Keanu Reeves action series was made against all odds. Showcasing as much drama behind the scenes as there was action in front of the camera, the documentary is an incredibly honest and inspiring watch. It is now available on Digital from Lionsgate.
“Wick Is Pain is the incredible true story behind the John Wick franchise, starring Keanu Reeves. In never-before-seen footage captured over a decade on and off set, the film chronicles John Wick’s journey from independent film—facing a mountain of creative, financial, and personal challenges—into a global phenomenon that redefined the action genre and launched three megahit sequels. Join Keanu Reeves, director Chad Stahelski, and the extended Wick cast and crew as they go behind the scenes of this billion-dollar franchise that almost never happened,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Congrats to you both on Wick Is Pain. Chad, I found it truly fascinating hearing you talk about how you feel pain is part of truly loving something, be it martial arts or filmmaking, in this case. The title of Wick Is Pain is just so apt. You and Keanu also clearly push each other physically and creatively. Can you speak to that philosophy of pain and how you connect that with John Wick?
Chad Stahelski: I think it’s kind of retroactive. I don’t know if that was ever the plan. We didn’t go, “Hey, let’s spend the next ten years of our lives being in pain.”
It comes across as a physical manifestation when you hear the title. Josh and Jeff did a great job on [Wick Is Pain] of trying to show a very naturalistic way of going. When you love something or like anything great requires hard work, as they always say, at least in our part of the business. You can’t just enjoy the view, you gotta love the climb. In order to be there, you have to love the process. You have to love the thing. And whether it’s coming up with the money or selling an idea.
People don’t realize — which I think again, the boys did a great job with in showing it — it’s not just having pieces. It’s not just putting together a recipe of having a movie star, a script. There’s still a lot to do. You have to somehow get people to believe in you. You still have to keep control of the project. You have to keep your vision, but yet you need a thousand people collaborating with you to get there.
And at one point that can fall apart, like in any movie you see. We’ve gotten much better at producing content, but I don’t think we’ve gotten that much better at producing great films, and any great film takes… what’s the line in Enter The Dragon? “Who knows what delicate wonders have died out of the world, for want of the strength to survive.”
That’s really what this is. So it’s not what everyone would think of there being confrontation of the studio. That there’s gotta be a negotiation. Believe me, I am a confrontational person by nature [laughs]. Like, I like fighting for what I think is right. I have no problem going to that space.
That’s not always the best path. And sometimes that’s frustrating. Sometimes you just have to deal with so many personality types and so many controversies and so many obstacles that yeah, it is painful. Everything in life is paying your bills is painful. The 405 traffic is painful, but like, what it’s really about that good kind of pain that. Would you rather be fighting for something you believe in or fighting for something that someone else believes in?
Are you fighting for your vision? Someone else’s vision… is this where I wanna spend my life? Do you wanna spend it in these things? You hear people, “ah, I just can’t take it anymore.” Okay, well, you know, I think a lot of filmmaking is not just endurance, but perseverance. It’s enduring the obstacles. It’s no like, there is no film that’s ever been made that didn’t have pain involved. Whether it’s confrontation or controversy or just effort. Sheer force of will.
I think Keanu and I both come from the same school of thought that everything in life we do everything that I can extend. And whether you look at it as a martial art philosophy or an intellectual philosophy is an extension of our will, our relationships, our perseverance. Like it is will that gets us there. It’s who wants it the most and who’s willing to endure the longest.
I’ve come up with so many notes and problems and stuff, but the people I have, my crew, my team, the people I love in my life, we’re just willing to endure it longer than everybody else. You know? And I think that sums up Keanu Reeves, like, look at his career. If there’s anybody that understands how great those moments can be, but yet how fragile and how soon and how quickly you can lose them, it’s Keanu. You know? So when he lives that moment, he knows what it takes more than most in our industry that it takes every ounce of will you have. So don’t commit to something that you’re not willing to pour your soul into. And that’s what we committed to in Wick is we’re not giving up on you. He’s not giving up on us.
Hopefully, which I think, again, the reason I like [Wick Is Pain], and again, Josh and Jeff were given pretty free reign to tell whatever story they wanna be. They could have sensationalized, they could have dramatized. In any behind the scenes, in any movie, the stories can go 20 different ways. There’s personal drama, business drama, financial drama. But they chose to show it more as a role model or a learning tool for everybody else out there that like, yeah, it will happen. It will always come, the storm will always come. It’s how you weather it. Do you want it? Are you gonna persevere through it? You know, like we lost funding two or three times. We lost cast, we lost opportunities, and Keanu wouldn’t give up on us.
There are many people that would’ve gone, “Okay, next job, it didn’t work.” And there’s many times where it would’ve been not easy, but it would’ve been a smarter thing to do, to fold and just, “Okay, let’s look for something else.” But we just believed in each other and believed in ourselves and mostly believed in what it could be in the time that we were making it, at least for what we wanted to say about action movies.
It’s like you’re dealing with a group of people that magically can’t… like people will call Keanu like a masochist, and this is ’cause he trained so hard. Like no, he just believes in what he does. He believes that if you’re going to spend a minute of your life, your very precious life in something, it’s not a half-ass thing.
I’m going to live in that moment. And if that moment lasts eight or nine years to complete this, that’s what the commitment is. And everything else is a commitment of will. And you’re gonna find out that when you commit to the gym, like the big joke with some guys always like getting to the gym, that half hour drive to the gym is the hardest part of the workout, man. Getting out of bed, getting in that car morning after morning after morning when sleeping in feels so good. That’s the hardest part.
Once you’re there, you’re not sweating for anybody but you. That workout is you, that is for you by you, your choice to spend your life there. So we look at that mentality if we’re on that set, I have worked my entire life to direct. I have worked my entire life to be on that set. Keanu has worked his entire career for these moments of creating a character that people love and is respected for.
And if you know that sweat, that pain is for you, you’re working for your own self, you’re working for your own achievements, like you can endure anything, you know? Once you got a how, you got the why, right?
Exactly. I found Wick Is Pain such an inspirational watch because, as you mentioned, all that sacrifice has really created something truly special. And I think Chad, you just demonstrated why the documentary’s so compelling because everybody involved is such a personality and compelling speakers as well.
Josh, I wanted to ask you, because you worked on The Matrix special features and documented that – that’s where you met Chad and Keanu. So could you speak to that connection you made? Because for you to still be documenting their work together 27 years later, that has to be pretty special.
Josh Oreck: It is, absolutely. It’s a really unique once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’ve followed it. And I think to just back to just go back to what Chad said, there’s a real joy and process that we all learned working for the Wachowskis on those movies that they talk about in the film. There’s a real joy in just seeing something through and being willing to just fight for what you believe in and get things done the right way. And they refer to it in the film as kind of going to Wachowski film school, whatever that means. And I think that, I think Chad and Keanu bonded there. I mean, he can speak to that more than me. I felt like I witnessed that. I think that Chad and David Leitch bonded there. And I think I bonded with them there too, just, you know, from my perspective as someone who is documenting the process.
And I think that’s another thing that Chad said early on is a commitment to process. It’s not really about pain in a bad way. It’s about pain and just an acceptance that like, you’re gonna feel some knocks and aches along the way, but that if you exalt in what you’re doing, it’s always gonna be worthwhile. And I think that was the biggest lesson of The Matrix, was watching these people really invent a genre and a style of filmmaking that didn’t exist before they made it.
And then for Chad and Keanu and David to take that style of filmmaking and really evolve it into something not any better or worse, but just entirely their own with the John Wick franchise, has been an incredible thing.
Josh, one thing that impressed me about Wick Is Pain is that the films have such a great style to them, and you really capture that in the documentary. How was it making sure the doc was as stylish as the films? There are also these great cinematic moments because the BTS footage has these long takes due to how the stunts were filmed. So it’s like you’re watching an action movie at times, even when you’re just seeing how it was made. So, how is it figuring out the feel for this documentary?
Oreck: That’s really nice. Thank you. I think we had an amazing shooter who was there on all four films. A guy named Matthew Sidle, who I went to college with in the nineties, and he was with us on The Matrix. So he was there with Chad and Dave and Keanu, obviously, in 2000. And he is just a patient shooter. He’s someone who knows Chad and who let’s just say isn’t intimidated by Chad who can be an intimidating presence on set and that they have fun on set, but also he respects what Chad and Keanu are trying to do, which as you said, is to let things play out in long takes.
Just let the cameras be witness to something amazing and human, as opposed to constantly trying to jump around and shape your perspective by the way things are cut. And I think we chose early on to cover things in that way, and we were just really lucky that we had someone there every day. In the beginning when there was no resources. We all chipped in – Chad, Dave, and myself all chipped in – to pay for Matthew to be there. And he covered every day. And you see the results of it.
Chad, I want, I wanted to ask you, because you mentioned how documentaries can be sensationalized and how they can go in 20 different directions, and I thought you and David and everyone involved really just brought such total honesty and you took like a warts and all approach even to the difficulties and even when it wasn’t your best moments in the film. Obviously, that honesty makes Wick Is Pain a great documentary, but can you speak to the trust you had in this team doing things the right way?
Stahelski: I don’t know. I’d start by saying it’s hard to your friends, right? Like when Josh was explaining,, we’ve all been together for over 20 years. How are you gonna know this isn’t a marketing tool-like documentary, right?
So like, you know, we gotta sit in the room and we like being together. Hopefully that comes across, like hopefully people will see like it’s a joy to work with Keanu. You know, it’s like Josh says, I’m a tricky guy for sure. I’m not gonna lie to you about that. Dave’s tricky, we’re all a bit skewed from the norm, and I think that’s part of what happened. But again, when Josh pitched this all to us too, it’s like trying to sound as objective as I can. We know making it was not normal, at least in what we had experienced in the film industry.
Until then, we know that we suffered or were exposed to many more obstacles than most. We know that we were not likely candidates to direct. We know where our careers, Keanu’s career, were, but we were very self-aware about the odds against us. We’re also very aware that we had a certain kind of attitude where we cannot do […] the process or the methodology in the way that most of Hollywood studios or producers would expect us to do it. We had already been shunned by pretty much every studio in Hollywood.
So when we say guerrilla style, we mean guerrilla style. Like, this, we’re doing it our way. We are gonna kill a dog, we’re gonna do action. We’re not gonna do shaky cam, we’re not gonna market this. We’re gonna launch this. We’re not gonna do three-act storytelling, we’re not gonna have these happy ending moments. We’re gonna do it as a Greek myth.
So you have to kind of get behind that attitude. “Hey, well, let’s show people that there is hope that this is meant to be!” “Hey, you can still pull stuff out, even if it’s not gonna work.” “Don’t let anybody tell you you can’t do stuff.”
It did take a certain kind of… okay, people say magic, it took a certain kind of attitude. I don’t give a f— attitude at the same time I give more of a f— than anybody else kind of attitude with the right group of people at the right time, with the right attitude, with literally nothing to lose going it, we’re gonna do it.
So if you don’t capture that in [Wick Is Pain], it’s not much of a documentary and it’s not gonna help anybody. It’s not about to show how cool or how tough or “Oh my God, these guys are so incredible. They pulled that out.” It just meant no man. We were like f–… sorry, I don’t mean to swear, but like we were not experienced. We were not the brightest or the smartest. We were not the guys that were paired for it. We were not geniuses by any stretch of the means. We were lost and confused most of the time. We just knew we couldn’t quit and we knew what we wanted to make. So if you can get that in a documentary, it’s okay not to know. You know, sometimes the documentary is meant to show you how, “Oh my God, the genius filmmaking.”
The thing [is] I’ve never seen that in 35 years. I have never seen genius filmmaking without happy accidents, and complete chaos and clusterf—s. And people still now, I’ve seen geniuses take creativity out of the chaos and build something unimaginable seen that many times, and I’m super impressed by it. And we’re more on that line of how do you show the world that like, this is filmmaking, it is chaotic, and it is a bit crazy, and you fight to keep the plan, and you do have a vision, and you do have to fight to keep it.
The best thing that could happen outta the documentary is not, “you know, Hey, let’s go watch more John Wicks.” Like the best I ever get is when you get a film student or you get a wannabe or somebody that hopes to be in the stunt community and they go, “Hey man, thanks.”
If Josh and Jeff’s documentary, if you get a couple films to go, and so you get some of your readers or listeners and they go, “man, f— it, there’s something I wanna do too.” And you’ll get knocked down 99 times and you stand up and you get it made on the hundredth.
And you’re doing better enough. So that’s to to your question. Like, remember everybody making this documentary? We just spent 20 years with it. So it’s not like you’re, “I don’t know you that well.”
So we got on the phone, I could bulls— easy. Like “Tyler, I’m a genius. That was always our plan.” But I [couldn’t] look at Josh, I [couldn’t] look at Keanu,…. Like we all know we were f—ing idiots at that time and […] we were just trying to fight our way through and learn as we went. We made more mistakes than most people will ever make, and you still gotta keep fighting, you know?
Thanks to Josh Oreck and Chad Stahelski for taking the time to talk about Wick Is Pain.
