In cinema, few voices have been as influential or as consistently boundary-pushing asLilly Wachowski’s. Alongside her sister,Lana Wachowski, she helped reshape modern storytelling withThe Matrixtrilogy, starringKeanu Reeves,Laurence Fishburne, andCarrie-Anne Moss, blending philosophy, cyberpunk, and action in ways that continue to echo through pop culture and tech alike, constantly resurfacing in conversations about technological advancements both in the industry and everyday life. Her later projects —Cloud Atlas,Sense8, andSpeed Racer— further explored themes of identity, connection, and transformation, often on a highly ambitious, global scale.
Working alongside Wachowski for the second and third films inThe Matrixtrilogy wasLyndon Barrois, a veteran visual effects artist, animator, and director whose work spans everything fromHappy FeetandThe Tree of Lifeto the groundbreaking visual design ofThe Matrix: ReloadedandRevolutions, where he served as animation supervisor. Known for both his technical fluency and his mentorship of emerging artists, Barrois brings a storyteller’s eye to even the most complex digital sequences, and has earned himself a well-respected name throughout the industry.
Before joining theAcademy Museum of Motion Picturesfor an in-depth conversation aboutThe Matrixtrilogy this weekend, the longtime collaborators and friends spoke with Collider’sSteve Weintraubto reflect on the circumstances in filmmaking that definedThe Matrixera, the evolution of tools, and the promises and pitfalls of emerging AI technologies. Outside the evolution of technology and how it impacts the creative process, the pair also discuss the ongoing challenge of making work that feels personal — even in a blockbuster landscape.
Building Worlds: Collaboration, Curiosity, andThe MatrixYears
“If AI can circumvent that and become a tool for propagandists, I think we really need to be watchful.”
COLLIDER: First, I want to thank you both for your work. I really want to start with AI, which is something that obviously everyone is talking about right now. For both of you, how do you view AI in movie making and television, and how it’s impacting what’s going on in the future?
LILLY WACHOWSKI: Oh, that’s a big one. I could spend the rest of the time talking about this. But go ahead.
LYNDON BARROIS: I’m actually heavily into the space because I’m one of Sora’s artists, so I’ve been using it, and it’s an interesting tool. It’s a powerful tool. The impact it’s going to have on movie-making overall —I don’t think it will replace it; I think it will make a dent in terms of production, because there are things being done to make it longer form content. It’s a powerful previs tool, for sure, for doing proof-of-concept things. But again, will it ever replace? No, because I don’t think anyone will lose the desire to set up a camera, get actors, and put people in front of the camera and on location and perform. I think that will always exist.
I haven’t seen tech yet that has whole-scale replaced anything that it preceded. There are always fears when things are new, but I think everyone just figures out the balance, and it just becomes a choice. Everything just keeps going. It all evolves. But I think we will just keep creating because artists will always find a way to make the stories, to tell the stories they want to tell.
I view AI right now as the earliest version of the Matrix, and that it just hasn’t advanced yet, but you give it a few more generations, and it’s a real challenge.
WACHOWSKI: As a filmmaker, you always want to welcome as many tools at your disposal as possible. When I think about AI and what it does for filmmakers… Even fluid dynamics was a form of AI, swarm dynamics. It was like you generate these, when we’re talking about sentinel tentacles.
BARROIS: We used to call them senitalia. [Laughs]
WACHOWSKI: That’s all early versions of this. I’m alittle more skeptical when it comes to whether or not it’s going to put people out of business. I think it will. I read this really interesting quote on BlueSky by this journalist, Moira Donegan, in response to some of these images that are popping up that the White House is putting out, with people getting deported, Muslims and folks getting deported from this country, and those versions of Studio Ghibli. The guy is handcuffing this cartoon woman.
She writes, “AI is the ultimate fascist technology because it pits itself precisely in opposition to the human. It circumvents variance, originality, imagination, surprise, in favor of mindlessness, repetition, standardization, the kind of thing that no one with a soul would be capable of desiring.” And I thought that that spoke to me in a way that felt pretty true in my bones. When I think about what’s happening right now at this time in this country, we are in the fight for our lives, for the idea of truth. If AI can circumvent that and become a tool for propagandists,I think we really need to be watchful.
BARROIS: Yes, absolutely.
Marvel Studios Defends ‘Secret Invasion’s Cringey AI Opening Titles
Objectively, they’re horrible. Morally, they’re worse.
Lilly, I have to ask you, what does it mean to you for Anonymous to be using Guy Fawkes masks to disseminate their messages?
WACHOWSKI: We didn’t createV for Vendetta. We took that comic book and adapted it. It’s media and filmmaking and stories. They’re funny when you release them into the world, how they can be turned into tools themselves. It’s like we have this Nazi in the White House, Elon Musk, who is at every turn using the ideas, not even the ideas inThe Matrix— he’s mutating and transforming and using the ephemera ideas ofThe Matrixto forward his own agendas, his own fascist agendas. I don’t have an answer to what an artist should do when it comes to protecting their art. In my opinion,once you create something and put it out into the world, it becomes part of our collective dialogue with each other. That’s all stories and art-making are. It’s about contributing to a collective dialogue. How you control that dialogue is beyond my capability.
I loveCloud Atlas. I think it’s just such a masterpiece. There are a lot of 4K editions being put out. Do you know ifCloud Atlas,and also the amazingSpeed Racer, if there are 4K editions being released for either?
WACHOWSKI: I don’t. TheSpeed Racerfan base is so rabid that they’re constantly @-ing me on social media, and so I actually looked into whether or not Warner Bros. had plans to releaseSpeed Racerin 4K, and that was a few years ago. They don’t see the fan base that’s out there for something like that, which is unfortunate. And Warner Bros. is also… Who knows what’s going on there? You gotta get at the head of the company.
BARROIS: There’s that part, right? [Laughs]
WACHOWSKI: You’ve got a jackass over there. I wouldn’t hold your breath at this point. You gotta wait for the regime change for that guy to fall out of favor.
Sometimes there are other places around the world that are releasing 4K versions. I would love to seeCloud AtlasandSpeed Racerin 4K. We actually spoke back whenCloud Atlaswas coming out with you and your sister and Tom [Hanks], and I remember asking you if you had a longer version, and you said there was a three-hour and 47-minute assembly cut, and then you eventually got it to three hours. Cut to a few years later, I saw an interview with Ted Sarandos, and he said that he had seen a four-hour version of the movie, and it was so much better. Was he exaggerating?
WACHOWSKI: I don’t know what that is. There’s no way. We wouldn’t have shown a four-hour version of the movie to anybody.
Yes, I figured that was true.
WACHOWSKI: He’s a liar.
BARROIS: His pants on fire!
Just to be clear for fans of the movie like me, the one that’s in theaters, the one that was released, is ultimately the one. That is the director’s cut.
WACHOWSKI: It is the ultimate.
The Enduring Legacy of The Matrix Trilogy
“If you do nothing else, you did this.”
You’re both going to be doing a conversation at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures forThe Matrixtrilogy, and its legacy of visual effects, world building, and storytelling in the cyberpunk genre. How did this event actually happen?
BARROIS: It’s a show that was curated by the Academy Museum, and I’ve done some programming there, being a member of the VFX Academy. I have a lot of agency with the museum itself. So, when they launched the show, they were asking me if there was any way I could help with the programming of the show, and Lilly and I have actually been talking and collaborating on some things. I said, “Well, you know, I can’tpromise, but I’ll ask her if she’s willing to come in and be a part of it. You tell me what you guys are thinking. What would you like?” And they said, “Oh, it’d be great if you two could actually get on stage and talk about the work you did together and your experiences.” I said, “Oh, shit, okay. Well, let me see,” and here we are. So it was just an ask, and she was gracious enough to say, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” Took a little prodding, but hey.
I ask this because, Lilly, I’ve been a fan of yours for a very long time, and I know that you are selective about doing interviews and events like this.
WACHOWSKI: Yes, that is true. Why did I say yes? I love Lyndon. We reconnected recently, andconnectivity, like the themes inCloud Atlas, is something that I’m trying to apply to my own life. I really think that connectivity is going to be the thing that keeps us all afloat. I’m not in the Academy. I’m not going to join the Academy.
BARROIS: I’m going to fix that.
WACHOWSKI: I don’t know. Trans Day of Visibility is coming up, and I’m like, “I gotta get out there and show people that we’re here, and we’re not going anywhere.”
I can’t believe you’re not in the Academy.
BARROIS: It’s unbelievable. When she told me that, my jaw hit the floor. I assumed, with all the things we have. It’s like, “What? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Yeah, that doesn’t add up for me at all. I actually want to go back in time a little bit and talk about whenThe Matrixfirst came out in ‘99. Something that people who are younger won’t remember is that back in ‘99, you didn’t have social media, you didn’t have the endless clips online.The Matrixwas sort of under the radar. No one really expected it to do what it was going to do. It’s sort of like the Iron Man of the Marvel Universe, where that came out of left field and just destroyed everything in its path. Lilly, can you talk about back in ‘99? What were the expectations whenThe Matrixcame out in terms of what did Warner Bros. think they had? Do you remember what it was like?
WACHOWSKI: Yeah, it was dire. Warner Bros. had a string of films that came out way below their expectations — big-star vehicles like John Grisham things, sexy lineups with actors and directors and properties, and they were all underperforming massively at the box office. So, you could feel the pressure building in that company among management. And management, as we kept creeping forward, we got Keanu [Reeves] and we got the cast, and then we got a green light based on a certain budget, and at every turn, these guys would look at us and say, “You have to save my job. I’m going to get fired. You have to save me!”
BARROIS: No pressure.
WACHOWSKI: This was oursecondfilm. We had doneBound, and we’re like, “Uh, this is a lot of pressure.” We knew that what we were doing was unusual.We knew that the action alone was going to be unlike anything that was delivered for American audiences. There was Yeun Woo-ping.He was awesome and making all these fantastic films in Hong Kong, but you never had that kind of action applied with American actors who had never done it before. That was the thing that you can’t put back in the back. When you think of Keanu now, you automatically think, “Oh, yeah, he’s fucking awesome. He’s this cool fight guy.” But back then it was like, he did some action, but you didn’t think of him as saying, “I know kung fu,” and then doing kung fu. So, we knew we had that.
BARROIS: I think his biggest action film at that time wasSpeed, right?
WACHOWSKI: Yes. So, there were a lot of budget battles back and forth. We had to fly back less than a week before we were starting principal photography to haggle over the budget, where they were going to cut the helicopter sequence. Why would you cut that? Anyway, we flew back, started, and got through the movie, got through the first cut, and the first cut was kind of rough. We were cutting on film. And slowly, as the visual effects, the iterations were coming in, the film got tighter, the film started looking better.
People like Joel [Silver] were suddenly interested in that. He was always peripherally interested in it. He knew it looked great, and the stuff we were going to do was kind of cool. We would cut these big trailers for cast and crew. We’d have a night, and we’d say, “Hey, we got this thing so you may see what you’re working on.” We’d all drink beer. Then they started previewing. Management and the executives, some of them would watch it and go, “This is the last time I’m going to say that I don’t understand this movie.” And the numbers would come in, and they’d be pretty good. People were like, “I don’t quite understand it.” And then that was it. Then it came out. We were coming out like right aroundStar Wars.It came out, and it just took off.
I remember seeing it in the theater.
WACHOWSKI: I remember it vividly.
For both of you, because Lyndon, you’ve worked on, I believe, the second and third film. What is it actually like to work on something, and Lilly, to have co-created something that literally the entire planet knows? Everyone knows The Matrix movies. If you haven’t seen them, you’ve heard of them. What is it like to work on art that is that impactful to billions of people?
BARROIS: I mean, it was a fucking blast. I just remember the first time Janine [Barrois] and I [saw it], because we were dating then when we saw the first one. We went into it and watched it and then came out like, “What the fuck did we just sit through?” Like, “Holy shit, that was fucking amazing.” Then a little momentum hits, so here comes sequel time. So I’m sitting in the studio at R&H — I don’t even remember what movie I was working on — and I get the call from one of the VFX producers, saying, “I’m working on these films up in the Bay Area. They want to have you up for an interview if you’re interested.” He tells me what it is, and I was like, “What the fuck? Are you serious?”
We get the job and then start commuting between LA and the Bay Area, and then go to Sydney on set, because my responsibility was supervising the animation in Zion. So, the parts of it that you see inReloadedand then the battle inRevolutions. So not only was it exciting then, but when I saw what it was going to be, I was like, “Holy shit, we’re making a short film within the film.” As a performance guy… I’m just getting chills thinking about it, just how much fun it was and how intense it was and the collaborations and the back and forth and all the iterations we were doing and being on set in Sydney with the APUs and all the actors. It was just one of those experiences that you go, “This is rare air.If you do nothing else, you did this.” It was just that fun.
Then, working with these guys. Just those daily sessions were fun, because we didn’t have that kind of interaction on set that much. But in dailies at EIC in the Bay, we would just have the best time just going through the shots and going through the sequences and having my animators in there and all this stuff. Now, come to this time, when Lilly calls me back saying, “Hey, you know, I’m thinking about all the people that I worked with and enjoyed working with. What are you up to?” I’m like, “What the fuck?” You just don’t know the impact you have on people. So, for it to last that long, you just go, “Wow, maybe I did something beyond what I even perceived it was.”
Again, billions of people on this planet know these movies.
BARROIS: I literally just got back from a business summit in Laguna this morning. And to a person, when everyone read my bio and came up to me, that’s the first thing they always said. “Oh, my god, tell me about The Matrix.” It just will forever resonate. It’s that, it’s billions of people.
WACHOWSKI: It’s weird. It’s a weird experience, but it’s funny. There was a time when I had kind of dropped out, and I was feeling like I was done with this business, and I went back to school. I was going for painting, and nobody knew who I was. I’m with young people, like 20-year-olds, 21-year-olds. There was this one guy who figured out who I was, an older student, maybe 29, who saw the films, and right as our semester was ending, he was like, “Oh, Lilly, you know what I saw recently?” And I was like, “What did you see?” He’s like, “I sawThe Matrix.” And I was like, “Oh, nice. Did you like it?” He started giggling, and our conversation was being overheard by this woman, our fellow student, and she was like, “What’s that?” I reached this point where I’m going on the other side of this awareness. It reallygave me that sense of mortality. So, in 100 years, who knows?
BARROIS: It is generational because the much younger people, they haven’t seen it. That’s even mind-blowing to go, “Wait a minute. How could you not have seen that movie?” And then you’re like, “Oh, right. They were nowhere.”
Why You Won’t See ‘The Matrix’ Deleted Scenes
“And then you have these things where George Lucas goes back and Han doesn’t shoot Greedo.”
Lilly, you and your sister have not really released any deleted scenes from any of your movies. Am I wrong about this?
WACHOWSKI: Actually,Bound, our first movie that had an alternate cut, which was our cut. We got an NC-17 from the Censor Bureau here in the United States. So, there is an alternate cut ofBound.
With the films that you two made, whether it beThe Matrixmovies,Cloud Atlas, everything, do you actually have the deleted scenes somewhere at home, or is it one of these things where alternate cuts or alternate takes are all in a Warner Bros. vault somewhere?
WACHOWSKI: I mean, calling Warner Bros.’ storage facilities a vault is generous. I don’t know if they know where anything is, honestly.
BARROIS: They’re not even showing up on a DVD as any extras?
No, they famously do not include extras like that.
BARROIS: Interesting.
WACHOWSKI: I don’t know. I feel like we get to a point in our editing process where we make the film that we want to make, and we are privileged enough to be able to fight for that cut in a way that we are happy. Nowadays, I think when you make a film, the entire board of your financiers are with you in the editing room a little bit more. The Marvel-ization and theStar WarsEffect: these boards come in, and it’s almost like when you’re making a commercial, where the director doesn’t really mean anything — the director just captures the footage. We haven’t, in our careers, had to deal with that, and so we’re always pretty happy with what we get, the version that is released.
I think it’s weird. You look at a thing likeBlade Runner, and yes, the first director’s cut after the initial release of that film was way superior. It was like the cut that was initially in the script. There was no voiceover. So, you could tell that there were all these fingerprints all over the piece. When you removed that, it was like, “Oh, that feels so much better.” And then Ridley [Scott] just kept making cuts. And I was like, “What are you doing? I thought that was it! I thought we did it.” Then you have these things where George Lucas goes back and Han doesn’t shoot Greedo. I’m just like, “What are you doing?”
That’s a whole other topic.
WACHOWSKI: I can turn into a libertarian suddenly, and Lilly Wachowski is going to release the libertarianMatrix. I’m just like, “No! No, don’t do that.”
BARROIS: Leave it, yeah.
10 Director’s Cuts That Are Much Longer Than the Theatrical Cuts, Ranked by Runtime
The director knows best!
It’s sometimes going too far, but I think for people like me who love these movies, seeing some of the extras is cool. There are a lot of directors, like [Stanley] Kubrick, who burned the negatives of his deleted scenes, and Woody Allen has never included deleted scenes. Some directors don’t want to show anything that’s not in the finished film.
WACHOWSKI: If we like it, it’s in. I’ve seen some deleted scenes where movies are actually better. Like the deleted scenes inAliens. There’s a scene where she goes back, and her daughter’s dead, and so the relationship that she has to Newt is much different. So, you get this funny dynamic that’s like, “Oh, it’s about motherhood.” There were these extra little bits that strengthened all of that stuff.
BARROIS: Yeah, much more context.
WACHOWSKI: There was even something inThe Abyss, too, that he cut that was like, “Wow, that was a good scene. I wish he wouldn’t have done that.”
For even more from Wachowski and Barrois, get your tickets forEnter the Matrix: Conversation with Lyndon Barrois, Sr. and Lilly Wachowski withThe Matrix Revolutionsin 35mm, hosted by the Academy of Motion Pictures on Saturday, April 19. They’ll be talking about theMatrixtrilogy, its legacy of visual effects, world building, and storytelling in the cyberpunk genre. Tickets start at $5 dollars!
