Keanu Reeves Cut Out a Lot of His Dialogue From JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 and Only Speaks 380 Words

Over the course of the 2 hours 49 minutes of John Wick: Chapter 4, Keanu Reeves only speaks 380 words. It makes sense that he doesn’t talk that much because, throughout the majority of the film, John Wick is fighting for his life! Nearly a third of Reeves’ dialogue in the sequel consists of just one single word… “yeah.”

The lack of dialogue for John Wick, though, was intentional. Reeves and director Chad Stahelski cut down the character's lines, and it’s said they “stripped out roughly half the dialogue written for his character in the initial script.”

One of the scenes where Wick was supposed to talk a lot was the part where he and the villainous Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) hash out the rules of their duel. That scene originally featured Wick speaking 50% of the dialogue. But, Reeves cut out chunks of that dialogue so Wick only has a few one-word responses in the scene, including “pistol” and “no quarter.”

The longest piece of dialogue spoken by Reeves as Wick in the action comes during a scene at the Osaka Continental when Wick tells Hiroyuki Sanada's character: "You and I left a good life behind a long time ago, my friend."

Co-writer of the film Michael Finch told The Wall Street Journal: "It's a shock when you work with him how dedicated he is to not speaking.”

Reeves puts everything he’s got into this role of John Wick, and it’s pretty amazing to watch him in those epic action sequences. He just knows the character of Wick so well, and the lack of speaking definitely is part of the character’s personality. I love the classic one-word John Wick responses!