With statistically few cinematic roles available for Asian actors in the United States, it may come as a surprise that the mighty Jet Li would pass on the Wachowski’s Sister’s offer for him to play Seraph in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. The role later went to Collin Chou.
According to Uproxx, the filmmakers “aggressively courted” Li who is one of the largest action stars of our era—in first China then the United States—appearing in major Hollywood films including Lethal Weapon 4, Romeo Must Die, and Unleashed. He passed on this opportunity to star in The Matrix franchise because he was worried he would lose the rights to his own moves.
“I realized the Americans wanted me to film for three months but be with the crew for nine. And for six months, they wanted to record and copy all my moves into a digital library,” Li said during a recent interview with Abacus News (by way of SyFy and AV Club). “By the end of the recording, the right to these moves would go to them.”
Jet Li’s authentic, self-executed moves have been an integral part of his public prominence especially in the early 2000s when digital technology in movie productions was on the rise and he couldn’t risk losing his intellectual property.
He wanted to remain the original author and owner of the work he’s done throughout his life. Li said, “I was thinking: I’ve been training my entire life. And we martial artists could only grow older. Yet they could own [my moves] as an intellectual property forever.“So I said I couldn’t do that.”
His next screen appearance since 2017 film Gong Shou Dao will be in Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan. Entertainment.ie reports that the Mulan adaptation is set to release in 2020.
