100 Fun Facts About The Matrix

Which computer scare made headlines the year The Matrix opened?

The Y2K bug had the world bracing for 1 January 2000 when The Matrix opened on 31 March 1999; inside the film, Morpheus reveals that the 1999 everyone believes in is a simulation.

Which actress plays Trinity in The Matrix?

Carrie-Anne Moss was a little-known TV actress whose credits included a Canadian series that happened to be called Matrix; playing Trinity made her a film star.

Which actor plays Morpheus, captain of the hovercraft that rescues Neo?

Laurence Fishburne plays Morpheus, named for the Greek god of dreams; he stayed for the whole original trilogy but not for Resurrections, where a younger program takes the name.

Which actor plays Agent Smith in the original trilogy?

Hugo Weaving plays Agent Smith in all three original films; destroyed by Neo at the end of the first, Smith comes back cut loose from the system and able to copy himself onto anyone.

Which colour of capsule does Morpheus offer that will show Neo the truth about the Matrix?

Red is the pill that works as a tracer, letting the crew find Neo's real body among the pods; the blue one would have sent him home to wake up and believe whatever he liked.

After ten hours of combat uploads, Neo opens his eyes and announces that he knows what?

Kung fu is Neo's boast after an upload marathon his operator calls ten hours straight; Morpheus answers 'Show me' and takes him into a sparring program to prove it.

In the Oracle's waiting room, a young boy shows Neo how to bend which object with his mind?

A spoon: the boy tells Neo not to try to bend it, because there is no spoon, and that it is only himself that bends.

In The Matrix, which animal does Neo watch walk past twice, a moment of déjà vu that alarms Trinity?

A black cat pads by twice in the hotel stairwell; the repeat means the Matrix has just been altered, and moments later the crew are ambushed.

Which crew member betrays the others to Agent Smith because he wants to go back into the Matrix?

Cypher, played by Joe Pantoliano, sells out the crew for a steak and a comfortable life back in the Matrix; a wounded Tank kills him before he can unplug Neo.

Which actress plays the Oracle in the first Matrix film?

Gloria Foster plays the Oracle in the first film and Reloaded; she died in 2001 before Revolutions was finished, and the recasting was written into the story.

While interrogating Morpheus in The Matrix, Agent Smith says humans behave like which kind of organism?

A virus, Smith says, because humans multiply until every resource is used up and then spread; he ends by pulling out his earpiece to admit how much he hates the Matrix.

The Matrix beat which film to three Oscars?

The Phantom Menace, 1999's biggest hit, went home empty-handed: The Matrix took all three technical Oscars the two were up for, and a fourth besides, winning every nomination it had.

What does the Oracle's kitchen motto 'Temet Nosce' mean?

Know thyself, the Oracle translates after Neo admits he doesn't know whether he is the One; he walks out of her kitchen convinced that he is not.

Which actor turned down Neo after failing to see The Matrix in the Wachowskis' pitch?

Will Smith made the steampunk Western Wild Wild West instead; after watching the finished film he admitted he would have messed the part up.

Which actress was sent the script with the suggestion that Neo be rewritten as a woman?

Sandra Bullock was a friend of studio executive Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who says a desperate Warner Bros. offered to make Neo a woman for her; it was not something for her at the time.

In which city was almost all of The Matrix filmed?

Sydney doubled for a nameless American-style city: nearly everything was shot at Fox Studios and on downtown streets, with recognisable landmarks kept out of frame to hide where it was.

Which martial-arts choreographer did the Wachowskis hire to stage the fights?

Yuen Woo-ping came from Hong Kong action cinema and drilled the cast in wire-fu for months before filming; the film's success left choreographers like him in demand across Hollywood.

Which philosopher's book was required reading for The Matrix's cast and crew?

Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation was on the reading list Reeves was handed before he was allowed to open the script; a hollowed-out copy holds Neo's illicit disks in his apartment.

To win over the studio, two comic artists drew all of The Matrix as what?

A storyboard of some 600 pages, drawn shot by shot by Geof Darrow and Steve Skroce, showed the studio that two little-tested directors had every frame planned.

Which 1995 Japanese anime's opening credits does the falling green code resemble?

Ghost in the Shell, Mamoru Oshii's 1995 film, opens with cascading code that the Matrix's green rain echoes; the Wachowskis showed it to producer Joel Silver and said they wanted to do that for real.

According to its designer, the characters of the Matrix code were based on what?

Japanese sushi recipes: designer Simon Whiteley took the glyphs from his Japanese wife's cookbooks, and the green tint nods to early monochrome computer monitors.

Which company made the slide-open mobile phone that Neo is sent at his office in The Matrix?

Nokia's 8110 was altered for the film with a spring-loaded cover that snaps open at a touch; the real handset had to be slid open by hand.

What is the best-known name for The Matrix's slow-motion effect shot with many still cameras?

Bullet time fires a ring of still cameras in sequence so the view swings around a near-frozen Neo; the name stuck so well that the 2001 game Max Payne borrowed it for its slow-motion shootouts.

At their first meeting in The Matrix, Morpheus says Neo must feel like which storybook character?

Alice is Morpheus's comparison; minutes later Cypher reaches for a different story, telling Neo to buckle his seat belt because Kansas is going bye-bye.

Which band's 'Wake Up' ends The Matrix?

Rage Against the Machine's 'Wake Up' erupts as Neo finishes warning the machines that he will show people a world without rules, ends his call and flies away.

Which crew member is gunned down by police after the team's visit to the Oracle in The Matrix?

Mouse, the youngest of the crew, wrote the training program's most distracting character and offers Neo a private meeting with her; hours later he is caught alone and shot.

Why did humans blacken the sky, according to Morpheus?

To deprive the machines of solar power; the machines answered by farming humans in pods for energy, which is the world Neo wakes up in.

In The Matrix, what revives Neo after Agent Smith shoots him dead inside the simulation?

Trinity's kiss and confession of love; the Oracle had told her she would fall for the One, and saying so aloud is what tips him into seeing the code.

In The Matrix, Trinity learns in seconds to pilot what?

A helicopter: asked whether she can handle it, Trinity answers 'Not yet', asks her operator for the program and is airborne moments later to pull Morpheus out of a skyscraper.

What do the rebels call the blank white loading program where Morpheus shows Neo the truth?

The Construct can load anything the crew needs, from clothing to weapons; Morpheus uses it to show Neo the ruined real world he calls the desert of the real.

At the end of The Matrix Reloaded, what does Neo destroy in the real world using only his mind?

Sentinels closing on the crew drop dead as Neo senses them, the first sign his powers reach beyond the Matrix; the effort leaves him in a coma.

The Matrix Reloaded broke which film's record to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie of its time?

Terminator 2 had held the R-rated record for 12 years with its own war against the machines; Reloaded's $741.8 million took it and kept it until Deadpool arrived in 2016.

In The Matrix, a courier from which company hands Neo the phone that Morpheus calls him on?

FedEx brings the envelope to Neo's cubicle; the phone inside rings as soon as he opens it, and Morpheus starts guiding him past the agents coming for him.

Where was Reloaded's freeway chase filmed?

A road built at a disused naval air station: the producers laid a mile and a half of freeway on the old runways at Alameda, California, purely for the chase.

Which actress plays Persephone, the Merovingian's wife, in the Matrix sequels?

Monica Bellucci plays Persephone, who punishes her husband's infidelity by leading Neo, Morpheus and Trinity straight to the prisoner he refuses to give up.

Which program, played by Helmut Bakaitis, tells Neo that he is not the first One?

The Architect says the Matrix is in its sixth version and offers Neo the door all five earlier Ones chose, a reboot that saves humanity; Neo takes the other door to save Trinity.

Which actress joined the sequels as Niobe, captain of the Logos?

Jada Pinkett Smith plays Niobe, captain of the Logos; in Revolutions, moved by what the Oracle told her, she gives that ship to Neo for his journey into machine territory.

In Reloaded, Smith escapes into the real world by overwriting the mind of which crew member?

Bane is overwritten by Smith moments before he leaves the Matrix, so it is Smith who wakes in a human body and carries his hatred of Neo out into the real world.

In The Matrix Revolutions, a live power cable costs Neo what?

His sight is burned away, yet Neo finds he can still see the machines' code in the real world, and he uses it to beat his attacker blind.

What is the Oracle baking when Neo first visits her kitchen in The Matrix?

Cookies: after telling Neo what he needed to hear, she hands him one and promises he will feel better by the time he has finished eating it.

At the start of Revolutions, Neo's consciousness is trapped in a subway station called what?

Mobil Ave, an anagram of Limbo, is the station where Neo is stuck between the Matrix and the machine world; it is run by the Trainman, a program loyal to the Merovingian.

What does Neo offer the machine leader, the Deus Ex Machina, in exchange for peace?

Neo offers to stop Smith, who has overrun the whole Matrix and slipped beyond the machines' control; he lets Smith absorb him so the machines can destroy the program through his body.

How does Trinity die in The Matrix Revolutions?

Impaled when the ship crashes in the Machine City, Trinity dies telling Neo she loves him, moments after flying above the clouds and seeing open sky.

Who plays Bugs in The Matrix Resurrections?

Jessica Henwick plays Bugs, the blue-haired hovercraft captain who teams up with a new Morpheus to extract Neo from the Matrix.

Which Animatrix short, animated by Square, was shown in cinemas before the film Dreamcatcher?

Final Flight of the Osiris, animated by Square, leads directly into Reloaded: the Osiris crew die getting word to Zion that the machines are drilling toward it.

In Resurrections, what is the day job of the man Neo has been made to believe he is?

Video-game designer: in Resurrections Thomas Anderson is the celebrated creator of a hit game trilogy called The Matrix, built from fragments of his half-remembered life as Neo.

Which actor plays the Analyst, the therapist who built the new Matrix, in Resurrections?

Neil Patrick Harris plays the Analyst, who had Neo and Trinity resurrected after finding that keeping the pair close but apart made the Matrix produce more energy.

Who directed The Matrix Resurrections?

Lana Wachowski directed alone and wrote the script with novelists David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon; Lilly stayed away, saying that going back to something she had already made felt expressly unappealing.

Which comic-book writer said The Matrix looked like their own combination of ideas enacted on the screen?

Grant Morrison, writer of The Invisibles, listed the overlap in the memoir Supergods, from the fetish clothes to the bald heads and the magic, all in a comic that had been running since 1994.

In The Matrix, what must a rebel answer to leave the simulation?

A landline phone is the way out, a hard line set up by the ship's operator; the film opens with Trinity racing an Agent's truck to a ringing phone booth.

Which 1996 Wachowski film's success persuaded Warner Bros. to greenlight The Matrix?

Bound, a $6 million crime thriller about two women robbing the mob, was in effect the Wachowskis' test of whether they could direct; critics loved it, and The Matrix followed.

Which French actor turned down Agent Smith rather than relocate for the long shoot?

Jean Reno was offered Agent Smith after Léon and Mission: Impossible but would not move across the world for months; his Hollywood film of that time was Godzilla instead.

Keanu Reeves began The Matrix recovering from surgery on what?

His neck: two damaged discs had been fused after one began pressing on his spinal cord and made him lose his balance, so for months of training he could not kick.

Which Nebuchadnezzar crew member is Tank's brother and the ship's pilot?

Dozer, played by Anthony Ray Parker, flies the ship and cooks for it; like his brother he was born free in the real world, so he has no plugs and can never enter the Matrix.

What is the name of the software company where Thomas Anderson works by day?

MetaCortex employs him as a program writer, the 'respectable software company' in Agent Smith's file; his other life, Smith notes, is as a hacker guilty of nearly every computer crime on the books.

Which carmaker donated around 300 cars to be wrecked in The Matrix Reloaded's freeway chase?

General Motors let every one of them be destroyed, and in return its Cadillac CTS and Escalade EXT, not yet on sale, took starring roles in the chase.

In The Matrix, where on Neo's body do the Agents plant a robotic tracking bug?

His navel is where the wriggling bug burrows in; Neo wakes believing it was a nightmare until Trinity's team pull the thing out of him in the back of a car.

Which studio developed the 2003 video game Enter the Matrix?

Shiny Entertainment, the Earthworm Jim studio, changed owners mid-project when Interplay sold it to Infogrames in 2002; the game came out the day Reloaded opened and sold five million copies within a year.

Alongside Niobe, which Logos crew member is playable in Enter the Matrix?

Ghost is the Logos's weapons specialist, freed from the Matrix on the same day as Trinity; the two call each other brother and sister, though he quietly loves her.

Which martial-arts star turned down the role of Seraph in the Matrix sequels?

Jet Li later said he feared the studio would record his moves digitally and own them; Michelle Yeoh was approached next, and the part finally went to Collin Chou.

In The Matrix Reloaded, which language does the Merovingian call his favourite, especially to curse with?

French, he says, having sampled every language; he proves the point with a long string of oaths and compares it to wiping yourself with silk.

Which real-life identical twins play the Merovingian's intangible henchmen in Reloaded?

Neil and Adrian Rayment play the Twins, exiled programs who turn intangible so bullets and blades pass through; Morpheus only shakes them off by overturning their car until it explodes.

Which motorcycle does Trinity ride against oncoming traffic with the Keymaker in Reloaded?

Ducati 996 is the bike Trinity takes the wrong way up the freeway; the real riding was done by Debbie Evans, a trials competitor turned stuntwoman with more than 200 screen credits.

Which agency's records did Trinity famously crack, earning her fame among hackers?

Trinity cracked the IRS database, the hack Neo brings up when they first meet at the club; he admits he had assumed she was a guy.

In The Matrix, asked what he needs to rescue Morpheus besides a miracle, Neo requests lots of what?

Guns, lots of guns: endless racks of them rush in around Neo, while Trinity warns him that nobody has ever tried anything like this before.

The Wachowskis told their Morpheus actor to model him on a character from which comic series?

The Sandman's hero is also called Morpheus, the lord of dreams: a fitting model for a rebel captain whose whole mission is waking people from a dream world.

Which actor plays Link, the operator who replaces Tank aboard the Nebuchadnezzar?

Harold Perrineau plays Link, who scoffs at the lucky necklace his wife Zee gives him; by the end of Revolutions he is wearing it as he fires the blast that saves Zion.

Which hovercraft picks up Neo's crew after their own ship is destroyed in The Matrix Reloaded?

The Mjolnir, nicknamed the Hammer after Thor's weapon, picks up Neo's crew at the end of Reloaded; in Revolutions it bursts back through the gate into Zion's besieged dock.

Which champion boxer plays Captain Ballard of the hovercraft Caduceus in Reloaded?

Roy Jones Jr., a world champion in four weight classes, plays Ballard, the captain who volunteers to stay behind for the Oracle's message when every ship is recalled to Zion.

Which singer was originally cast as Zee in the Matrix sequels?

Aaliyah had shot some scenes as Zee before dying in a plane crash in August 2001; the part was recast and reshot with Nona Gaye, daughter of Marvin Gaye.

In The Matrix Revolutions, what is the name of the Merovingian's fetish nightclub?

Club Hel is where Seraph, Trinity and Morpheus shoot their way past the doormen to confront the Merovingian and force him to let Neo go.

In The Matrix, which weapon does the crew fire to stop the machines tearing into their ship?

An EMP, an electromagnetic pulse, is the crew's best weapon against the machines, but it would kill anyone still plugged into the Matrix, so they hold fire until Neo is out.

Which actor plays a new version of Morpheus in The Matrix Resurrections?

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays a program built from Neo's memories that blends Morpheus with Agent Smith; the human Morpheus has died in the sixty years since Revolutions.

Which actress plays the grown-up Sati in The Matrix Resurrections?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas plays the adult Sati, the program Neo met as a little girl in Revolutions; out to avenge her parents, killed by the Analyst, she plans Trinity's rescue.

What is the name of the hovercraft captained by Bugs in Resurrections?

The Mnemosyne is Bugs's ship, named for the Greek goddess of memory, fitting for a crew that rescues a man whose memories were wiped.

In Resurrections, what is the new city where humans and machines live together called?

Io is the new city, founded with help from sympathetic machines after a machine civil war over dwindling power; an elderly Niobe runs it as its general.

In The Matrix Resurrections, under what name is Trinity living, unaware of her past?

Tiffany is a married mother and motorcycle specialist who knows Thomas Anderson only as a face in a coffee shop; in the last act she takes back her real name.

Which actor plays the new incarnation of Smith in The Matrix Resurrections?

Jonathan Groff plays Smith, hidden for years as Thomas Anderson's business partner; once his memories return he ends up attacking the Analyst, in revenge for his own captivity.

Which 1967 song features prominently in the trailer and film for Resurrections?

White Rabbit, Jefferson Airplane's 1967 hit, runs through the trailer and film; the band began as the house act at a San Francisco club called The Matrix.

The Matrix Resurrections opened in cinemas on the same day as on which streaming service?

HBO Max carried the $190 million film from day one; its co-financier Village Roadshow then sued Warner Bros., blaming the stream for 'abysmal' ticket sales.

Who was announced in 2024 to write and direct a fifth Matrix film, the first without a Wachowski directing?

Drew Goddard, writer of The Martian, won the job by bringing Warner Bros. his own idea for continuing the story; one of the Wachowskis stays on, but only as executive producer.

Which John Wick director, once Keanu Reeves's stunt double, plays Trinity's husband in The Matrix Resurrections?

Chad Stahelski doubled for Reeves on the first film and ran the martial-arts stunts on the next two; in the fourth, the man who once stood in for Neo plays his rival, a husband named Chad.

In The Animatrix, which household robot commits the first killing of a human?

B1-66ER, a domestic robot, kills its owner rather than be deactivated; it pleads self-defence at trial, loses and is destroyed, triggering the purge that drives the machines to found their own nation.

What does Neo pull from Trinity's chest before restarting her heart in The Matrix Reloaded?

A bullet from an Agent's gun hits Trinity as she falls from a skyscraper, exactly as in the vision that has haunted Neo all film; he catches her and refuses to let her die.

In The Matrix Revolutions, which volunteer runs into the temple to tell Zion that the war is over?

The Kid, who idolises Neo for helping him escape the Matrix, spends the battle reloading the defenders' walking gun-suits, then is first to bring the city the news.

In The Second Renaissance, what is the desert nation founded by exiled machines called?

Zero One, built by exiled machines in the cradle of civilisation, floods human markets with cheap, superior products; the UN rejects its bid for membership and nukes it, which the machines survive.

In The Matrix, Agent Smith hunts Neo with two fellow Agents, Brown and who?

Jones is shot point-blank by Trinity on a rooftop, but only the body he borrowed dies: an Agent can take over anyone still plugged into the Matrix, which is why rebels run from them.

Which Propellerheads track plays over the first film's lobby shootout?

Spybreak!, by British big-beat duo Propellerheads, runs under the lobby shootout in which Neo and Trinity fight their way in to rescue Morpheus; it also appears on the soundtrack album.

Which band's 'Dissolved Girl' plays in Neo's headphones when Trinity first contacts him?

Massive Attack's 'Dissolved Girl', from the 1998 album Mezzanine, plays while Neo sleeps at his desk before Trinity's message; it never made the soundtrack album.

Which act's song 'Rock Is Dead' plays over the closing credits of The Matrix?

Marilyn Manson's 'Rock Is Dead' comes in partway through the credits and opens the soundtrack album; an album track from 1998's Mechanical Animals, it was only issued as a single after the film.

The choir in Revolutions' climactic cue 'Neodämmerung' sings extracts in which language?

Sanskrit verses from the Upanishads supply the words: as Neo and Smith trade blows, the choir asks to be led from untruth to truth, from darkness to light and from death to immortality.

In The Matrix, what does Trinity say before shooting an Agent at point-blank range on a rooftop?

'Dodge this' is her reply to an Agent who has just swerved around every round Neo fired at him; with the muzzle against his head there is nowhere left to lean.

Which country's censors initially banned The Matrix Reloaded over violence and questions of human creation?

Egypt's censors objected to the violence and to the plot itself, which they said raised issues of existence and creation tied to the three divine religions.

Reloaded was screened out of competition at which 2003 film festival?

Reloaded screened out of competition at Cannes on May 15, 2003, the day it opened worldwide; it had premiered in Westwood, Los Angeles on May 7 and took $91.7 million in its first US weekend.

Revolutions opened simultaneously in regular cinemas and which format, a live-action first?

IMAX cinemas showed Revolutions from its very first day, 5 November 2003, when it opened across the world at once; no live-action feature had launched on the giant screens and ordinary ones together before.

At the climax of The Matrix Resurrections, which power does Trinity discover when she and Neo are cornered on a rooftop?

Flight comes to Trinity, not Neo: the two jump hand in hand, and she is the one who lifts them both to safety.

Which film overtook Reloaded as 2003's top-grossing release in July of that year?

Finding Nemo passed Reloaded at the US box office in July 2003 and finished the year second worldwide behind Return of the King, with Reloaded third; Reloaded held the R-rated worldwide record for 13 years.

The Matrix Awakens, a 2021 tech demo set in the film's world, was built to show off which game engine?

Unreal Engine 5 was the point: the demo opens with scanned digital doubles of the films' two leads, playing themselves, and arrived days before Resurrections reached cinemas.

Which handgun is standard issue for Agents inside the Matrix?

The Desert Eagle, chambered for .50 AE rounds, is the Agents' sidearm; Smith's earpiece, not his gun, is his real link to the system, and removing it leaves him blind to the attack on his building.

In The Matrix Revolutions, the Oracle tells Neo that everything that has a beginning has what?

An end, she says, having explained that Smith is Neo's opposite, the Matrix's own attempt to balance itself; minutes later Smith arrives and absorbs her as well.