Keanu's big giggle when asked about those Matrix NFTs is a thing of beauty

By nature of being the stars of the film franchise they happen to be the stars of (The Matrix; did we actually need to type that out?), Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss tend to get asked a lot of questions about the future of technology, and its effects on society.

This is generally for the public good, in so far as Reeves is the kind of guy who never met a hypothetical question he couldn’t affably bullshit about for a while, and it’s fun to watch Moss clearly enjoy his company while also trying to remind people that The Matrix is not supposed to be an aspirational story.

Those two vibes are what make a recent interview the pair gave to The Verge—timed to the release of the new Matrix Awakens video game “experience” this weekend—such an odd little pleasure. Of especial note are the two times Reeves gives a big weird hyena laugh about the absurdity of it all, the first coming when interviewer Alex Heath brings up the Matrix NFTs Warner Bros. recently sold. Reeves quickly notes that these $50 unfungibles may be “unique,” but they certainly are “easily reproduced.” Cue the high-pitched titter. (He also muses to Moss about whether they get a cut.)

Besides an earlier bit where Reeves seem genuinely annoyed that Facebook is trying to claim the invention of the “metaverse”—a decades’ old concept—for itself, the most wild part of the interview comes at the end, when Heath brings up the whole “Please don’t mod the game so you can do sex stuff to Keanu” controversy from 2020 video game Cyberpunk 2077. This appears to be the first time that Reeves—who doesn’t play video games, but has starred in a handful of them—had heard about this particular wrinkle in the evolving labyrinth of online identity.

And, you know what? He sounds pretty cool with it! “It’s always nice when it’s nice,” he starts, apparently taking the whole thing as a very weird compliment. Then he gets entrepreneurial: “Think how much money is in porn, right? So you could not even have to be there, and people could have digital sex with your digital avatar.” Moss, meanwhile, is clearly horrified. “No thank you!” she laughs. “Keanu’s fine with it.”

Then! Reeves calls OnlyFans “Members Only,” and starts talking about “arousal metrics,” at this point clearly as much to horrify Moss as anything else. To quote Keanu Reeves, one sentence later: “Oh my gosh!”