The Wachowski Brothers FAQ

They may be famously untalkative, but Larry and Andy Wachowski sure know how to generate a lot of noise. With the November 5 release of The Matrix Revolutions, the final film in the epic trilogy, the media hype is once again deafening. The movies have transformed the brothers from small-time carpenters to fabulously wealthy and powerful Hollywood players. What hasn't changed is their reticence. If anything, the Wachowski brothers have become more reclusive since the first Matrix came out in 1999. They haven't given an interview in four years, and under an unusual deal with Warner Bros., they never have to talk to the press. Anyone who works on a film with them is made to sign a nondisclosure agreement. "They just want to stay as incognito as possible," says their manager, Lawrence Mattis. When I told him I was writing a story, he chuckled: "Good luck going down the rabbit hole. There's no map."

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Kenn Brown

Maybe not, but the brothers Wachowski have dropped a few bread crumbs along the way. Wired followed the path.

> Why so much intrigue?

Almost from the beginning of their Hollywood careers, the Wachowskis have cultivated an air of mysterious anonymity. Joel Silver, the producer of the trilogy, told an interviewer that the brothers simply "don't want to talk about themselves. They feel uncomfortable and embarrassed." The official production notes for the original Matrix said only that the two "have been working together for more than 30 years. Little else is known about them." Such reclusiveness no doubt adds to their mystique. But it's also true that there are matters they would prefer not to discuss. For starters: nasty tabloid stories about gender bending and a dominatrix named Ilsa Strix.

> Really?

It's complicated. Let's start at the beginning.

> Where do they come from?

South Chicago, where they lived with their two sisters and parents -�Lynne, a nurse, and Ronald, a businessman. Larry and Andy graduated from Whitney Young High, a public magnet school known for its performing arts and science curriculum, in 1983 and '85, respectively. They didn't particularly stand out at Whitney Young – no clever yearbook entries, no scandalous student films – but they weren't loners, either. Classmates remember both playing Dungeons & Dragons and working in the school's theater and TV program, but always on the tech side, behind the scenes. Andy went to Emerson College in Boston. (He was a top student in his introductory film class – even though he "botched a quiz," says his former professor, Claire Andrade-Watkins.) Larry went to Bard in upstate New York. Both dropped out after two years and returned to Chicago, eventually setting up a house-painting and construction business and writing for Marvel Comics. Chicago references are sprinkled throughout the Matrix scripts.

> How did they go from housepainters to the pinnacle of Hollywood filmmaking?

Their "Rosebud" moment came after they read a book by B-movie master Roger Corman, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime. That inspired them to write a script called Carnivore, about wealthy people being eaten by cannibals. That movie hasn't been made (yet), but the script did get them noticed. In 1995, Warner Bros. bought a script from them called Assassins. Mel Gibson said he was interested in directing, but he opted to make Braveheart instead. Director Richard Donner signed on, ordered extensive rewrites, and turned the film into a big-budget vehicle for Sylvester Stallone. Larry likened the process to an abortion and tried unsuccessfully to have their names removed from the credits. Not surprisingly, the movie flopped.

While the Wachowskis were battling Warner Bros. over Assassins, they showed Silver, its producer, the script they'd written for a sci-fi serial set inside a computer. "The minute I started reading the script for The Matrix, I wanted to see it," Silver says. "But then the guys said, 'And we want to direct it.' That was going to be tough." Instead of green-lighting the movie, Silver gave his blessing to a small, independent film they had written, Bound, a noirish crime drama about two lesbians stealing from the mob. Critics loved it, and it retains a certain cult following. In essence, it was a $6 million test to see whether they could write and direct. They could.

> So then Warner Bros. handed over $70 million to make The Matrix?

Not quite. The suits still needed more convincing. So the Wachowskis hired underground comic book artists Geof Darrow and Steve Skroce to draw a 600-page, shot-by-shot storyboard.

> And they got the creative control they wanted?

Almost. Warner Bros. retained control of the casting. For the pivotal role of Neo, the studio decided on Keanu Reeves. (Also seriously considered: Kevin Costner.) Reeves had done poorly with Johnny Mnemonic, but the studio was high on his demographic appeal. The brothers were skeptical. "They were like, 'Keanu Reeves? Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure? Can he do what we need?'" one friend recalls. "Now they feel so grateful they have him." The Matrix went on to generate more than $440 million in worldwide ticket sales.

> What's it like on a Wachowski set?

Buttoned-down. Actors and crew who have worked with them say there is almost no ad-libbing and very little rewriting once the cameras start rolling. They do not deviate from the storyboard, except to cut during the editing process. "They are really self-contained," says Susie Bright, who had a cameo in Bound. "They are not into giving acting lessons. None of that. It was like, 'Let's go.'" She recalls that when one of the brothers wanted an actress to convey a bit more attitude, all he said was "Give it a little bit more mustard."

> Sounds like they're all business.

Apparently not. Those who have worked with them say they're not standoffish. "They've got a dry Midwestern sense of humor," Bright says. "They don't have big egos or pretensions. They are just comfortable and fun. They are easy, easy people and both funny." Movie after movie, the Wachowskis work with the same tight-knit posse, nearly all of whom decline to talk about them. Those who will go on the record are effusive with praise. Says sound designer Dane A. Davis, who's toiled on all three Matrix films: "I was in heaven. An exhausting heaven, but heaven nonetheless. It ended with a degree of creative satisfaction and peer recognition that I had never experienced." (See "Addicted to Noise" on page 2.)

> Who's the boss?

They write together, swapping script pages on yellow legal pads. They both offer occasional direction to the actors and are most comfortable sitting behind the monitor, observing the action onscreen. Andy is a burly, beer-drinking, sci-fi fan, while Larry enjoys a good restaurant meal and has more of an appreciation for philosophy. Davis says, "They're very intellectual and academic in a way, in terms of the research they do and the ways they conceive of and write things, but on set they have this kind of regular-guys-with-baseball-hats thing. Every other thing out of their mouth is just hilarious. They are deliberately letting the gas out of it, saying something that makes it clear that ultimately it's just a movie. Especially Andy. He's just a riot. He could be a stand-up comedian."

> Who has influenced them?

Stanley Kubrick, Herman Hesse, Homer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, John Huston, John Woo, Billy Wilder, Ridley Scott, George Lucas, Fritz Lang, and Cornel West.

> Cornel West?

Yes, Princeton University professor Cornel West, the author and philosopher. Larry called up West one day to tell him that his wide-ranging explorations of race, religion, and identity politics had significant influence on their scripts. "That blew my mind," West says. "Then Larry said, 'We've written a part for you in Matrix 2.' I said, 'You've got to be kidding, man!'" On set to film his small role as a counselor of Zion, West fell into a lengthy philosophical discussion with the brothers. "Incredible," he says of their talk about reality versus perception, truth versus untruth. "They have a kind of insatiable perplexity, deeper than insatiable curiosity, that makes them profoundly Socratic. It's not just bookish. These folks are in love with the life of the mind."

> OK. But what about the dominatrix?

We're back to those sleazy tabloid stories. Ilsa Strix, whose real name is Karin Winslow, is well-known in the West Coast sadomasochism scene. In 1996, she told Sexuality.org that her German mother was a "Nazi love child, a product of World War II." Winslow's r�sum� notes that she teaches, acts, and directs. Her classes include everything from "piercing and sterile technique" to "the fundamentals of flogging." In 2000, she both starred in and directed Trans Sex Slave, a video "with four transsexual beauties," and her video Fetish FAQ 1 was nominated for an adult Oscar in the Best Bondage category. It was Winslow who accompanied Larry to the premiere of The Matrix Reloaded last May.

> Is Larry really planning to undergo a sex change operation?

Probably not, although that doesn't make the reality any less strange. At the Reloaded premiere, Larry, who once favored jeans, flannel shirts, and Chicago Bulls caps, sported a floppy knit beret, delicate earrings, plucked eyebrows, and what appeared to be full makeup. Afterward, Jake Miller, Winslow's estranged husband and himself a female-to-male transsexual (try to keep up now), popped up in the London tabloids to explain that Larry had stolen his wife after the two met in Winslow's dungeon. Furthermore, Miller claimed, Larry was taking female hormones in preparation for a sex change operation. Now living in New Orleans, Miller admits he has no firsthand knowledge that Larry is planning to go through with the surgery and concedes he was paid for his story. "I lost everything," he says of his breakup with Winslow.

One source who knows the couple and the scene dismisses the sex change rumor, explaining that Larry is merely a cross-dresser, not a transsexual. "But what people don't get," he says, "is that Larry and Karin are genuinely in love – they're the perfect match."

> How did Larry's wife react to all this?

Thea Bloom is suing for divorce. A statement she filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court the day before the Reloaded opening reveals that the pair decided to split for reasons "based on very intimate circumstances, concerning which I do not elaborate at this time for reasons of his personal privacy." In the filing, Bloom alleges that her estranged husband is "hiding information from me regarding our financial affairs" and asks the court to block her husband from buying a $2.7 million house in San Francisco for himself and Winslow. In response, the judge issued a freeze order on the assets of "Laurence Wachowski, aka Laurenca Wachowski."

> What's next?

Like everything else about the brothers, their future is shrouded in mystery. Two Wachowski scripts are floating around Hollywood. One, a fanciful retelling of the Guy Fawkes story set in a postapocalyptic Britain, is an adaptation of V for Vendetta, the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. The other, Plastic Man, is based on the old DC Comics character. Plastic Man has long been rumored to be the Wachowskis' next film, but, of course, there's no official word.

Addicted To Noise

Forget computer-generated bings, bangs, and booms. Dane Davis has become the king of sound f/x – from The Matrix to the Xbox – by keeping it real.

by Jon M. Gibson

The script called for mind-blowing martial arts. Every kick, punch, and chop in The Matrix Reloaded had to look incredible – and sound cool, too. Audio effects guru Dane A. Davis knew he'd never get it right by twiddling knobs on a synthesizer or holding a boom mike over someone pummeling a slab of frozen meat. "What I wanted to hear was something more organic, more believable," Davis says. So he put two jujitsu artists from a local dojo inside a 6- by 8-foot recording booth and told them to beat the crap out of each other. For four days, the two fighters went at it, slamming into cement, steel, and wood.

"It's all about telling a story with noise," says Davis, who has become Hollywood's leading soundman thanks to a relentless focus on detail and authenticity. He earned a 1999 Academy Award in sound effects editing for The Matrix and composed the audio for last spring's Reloaded and this month's Revolutions, either of which could win him another Oscar. But movies aren't his only forte. Davis is also the man behind the roar on two new videogames – Need for Speed: Underground and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Davis' signature is to act out in real life the scenarios depicted onscreen. To imitate the blast of an engine in EA Sports' nitrous-dosed street-racing romp Need for Speed, he attached microphones to the engine and tailpipe of 15 cars, then for days burned rubber up and down a Los Angeles runway. To create vocals for the imagined beasts in Ubi Soft's sequel to Prince of Persia, he combined the grunts from trained animals with the huffs and puffs of human actors. When the footage showed townsfolk walking away from their homes in the indie flick Northfork, he sent his crew to record dusty footsteps on the quiet plain of Bodie, a ghost town in Northern California. For Reloaded's infamous freeway chase, Davis dropped cars from cranes, rammed them into each other, and bashed them with 3,500-pound wrecking balls to capture the essence of grinding metal. "It's like sound design boot camp," laughs Bryan Watkins, the game audio director at Danetracks, Davis' LA company.

The Matrix trilogy offered artistic freedom – and the budget to bring it alive. For the final episode, Davis simulated the death of a mass of sentinels by firing 2-inch lead cannonballs through a line of washing machines and trash bins filled with metal junk. "That was fun – expensive, but fun," he says.

Even as he pushes the limits, Davis knows that sound design has a long way to go. "If you compare it to the visual world, we're still 20 years behind. CG imaging is just at the point where it's starting to look real." Computer-generated audio, however, continues to sound really fake. The solution, he says, is sophisticated audio software that, alas, remains a generation away. "Let's say we have a metal gun turret that is 20 feet tall, and it's falling over and landing on a giant metal scaffold," he explains. "I should be able to approach it just the way a visual effects designer does and draw in the weight, dimensions, mass, and how far it's going to fall. What we do now is go out and record a 10-pound metal object hitting another 10-pound metal object. Then we bring it into my studio, and I try to make that 10-pound object sound like 10 tons. Now, I'm really good at it, but it's a primitive approach."

Though not as primitive as the audio tracks on videogames, Davis says. "It's the same gag over and over again," he complains. "Games are functioning now more like toys than entertainment with a capital E. The game business is just starting to wake up to their responsibilities, and what they need happens to be what I'm most interested in and have a reputation of achievement in."

Success is making Davis the ears of two industries. "Dane can bring a sound to life," says Simon Pressey, technical and artistic director of audio for Ubi Soft Montreal. "He gets to the heart of the how and why of the sound, and the result that hearing it should create."

It's a lot simper than that, as Davis sees it: The fantasy worlds in films and games should sound real.