Production designer Simon Whiteley got the idea from his wife's cookbook.

If you’ve ever wondered what that green text in “The Matrix” really meant, prepare for an answer that’s almost as anticlimactic as the third movie in the Wachowskis’ sci-fi trilogy: sushi. That’s according to production designer Simon Whiteley, who designed the “digital rain” but had his work go uncredited.

“I like to tell everybody that The Matrix’s code is made out of Japanese sushi recipes,” Whiteley tells CNet in a new interview. He says he scanned the characters from his wife’s Japanese cookbooks and, “without that code, there is no Matrix.” Whoa.

Whether Whiteley also lobbied to have Keanu Reeves’ famous “I know kung fu,” declaration replaced with “I know how to make a spicy tuna roll,” could not be confirmed at press time. Read the full interview, which also touches on Whiteley’s work on “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” here.

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