John Wick

John Wick (2014)

Yeah, he's thinking he's back

Age:40s
Occupation:Baba yaga, a deformed old witch who flies around in a mortar and dwells in a hut propped up by chicken legs. Hey, everyone needs a hobby.
Distinguishing Feature:He once killed three men. With a pencil.
What He Taught Us:Don't touch his dog.

Keanu Reeves

I think John’s a good man. He’s not a psychopath. He isn’t out there killing innocent people. Everyone he kills in the film is trying to kill him. When we first see him, he’s a guy grieving for his lost wife. But it turns out he has lived lives in two worlds: one in which he’s a happily married man and one in which he’s an assassin. He has tried to bury his past, but without his wife, he is lost.

John thought he was stronger than he is, when really he’d been drawing that strength from his wife, Helen. He thought he was in control, but the switch flips and there’s no turning back. When someone takes the things he cherishes, violence erupts and John can’t temper it.

He has a strong will. I haven’t played that many hitmen, but with John Wick, I was attracted to his grief. I liked the intensity of his emotion; the connection that he felt to the life that he was living and leaving the past behind. Then, once his life and honor is violated, the unleashing of this Old Testament, Greek mythological force. There’s something about his power. I like the vulnerability and then the power to do something about it. I think that’s what the audience reacts to as well. We enjoy seeing someone being capable of overcoming odds or to reclaim something that’s been lost.

When I think about him, I think about him as John and John Wick. I think of John Wick being the assassin part of John. I would say that guy has strong will; never gives up; he’s kind; and there’s honor about him. He’s also a man of strength. There are even some vulnerabilities to him. Most importantly, he’s good at his job.

One of the things that drew me to Wick was his sense of honour and desire to lead a better life. Wick is the kind of man who lives by an unwritten code of honour that is part of this dark underworld he comes from. Even when he puts on his suit, he does in a way that lets you know that he has a sense of duty or mission to the journey he's about to begin. It's his armour, in a way, and even though there's a reticence and ambivalence to him, you sense that he's going to go all the way to carrying out what he sets out to do.

He’s driven by a firm set of principles and he’s not someone who you want to mess around with after he’s lost his wife and simply wants to be left alone. But once he’s set in motion, he’s going to be a man who is very hard to stop.

I really liked the character. I liked John's grief, I liked his will, I liked his fighting for his self-agency.

Derek Kolstad, writer

John’s the kind of guy who walks into a room and has everything laid out in his mind like a chess game. In the underworld, he’s a legend, and he’s been away long enough that the young up-and-comers have heard the name, but don’t necessarily believe all the stories.

Basil Iwanyk, producer

Helen probably thought John had some skeletons in his closet, but it wasn’t important. All we know as an audience is that the moment he met her, he became a different person. Love changed him.

neaura

For now, Wick has shown the world that black does go incredibly well with black and puppy killers make for infinitely better headshot targets than zombies.

Misty

John Wick has a child's heart and emotion, an old gentleman's veteran experiences, and an adult's goal-oriented strategic mind. Only Helen knows the soft-side of him. Thus, when she is gone, the rest of the world ... and his enemies, see him as a shark.