Keanu Reeves said studio heads weren't "ready" for atrans character when "The Matrix " premiered in 1999.- In 2020, director Lilly Wachowski confirmed the films were intended as an allegory for the closeted trans experience.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, actor Keanu Reeves said an openly trans character was cut from an earlier script he received while working on "The Matrix."
An androgynous character named Switch was originally intended to be played by a woman in the matrix, and a man in the real world.
In a 2020 interview with Netflix, the film's co-director, Lilly Wachowski, said this plot line would have symbolized a transmasculine experience, had it come to fruition.
"I think the studio wasn't ready for that," Keanu Reeves told EW.
Ultimately, Switch was played by a woman in both worlds. Wachowski said while Switch wasn't featured as intended, the films' deeper meaning as an allegory for a closeted trans experience still holds true.
"The corporate world wasn't ready for it," Wachowski said in 2020. "'The Matrix' stuff was all about a desire for transformation but it was all coming from a closeted point of view."
Since the original trilogy premiered, Wachowski and her co-director and sister, Lana Wachowski, have both come out as trans and discussed how "The Matrix" helped them process their transness.
It's unclear whether or not the upcoming film "The Matrix Resurrections," which premieres December 22, will allude more heavily to transness or feature a trans character.