David Ayer’s L.A. cops thriller, “Street Kings” will be released on April 11, starring Keanu Reeves as an LAPD vice detective who is driven to find the killers of his former partner. Reeves is strongly associated with “The Matrix,” to say the least.

Will moviegoers accept him as an L.A. cop?

Forget the red pill. Whatever Keanu Reeves does, he’ll probably never escape The Matrix.

That much became evident during auditions for Reeves’ new L.A. cop thriller Street Kings. Try as he might to find a young male actor to work opposite the 43-year-old superstar, director David Ayer kept head-butting the same problem.

“As soon as we would read them against Keanu they would, I won’t say fall apart, but they’d get pretty nervous,” he tells Sun Media.

“I thought, ‘What’s going on here?’ Then one of the producers said, ‘Look, these guys were 10 or 11 years old when The Matrix came out, it’s like you meeting Clint Eastwood.’ ”

Asked about this later during a news conference at a Beverly Hills hotel, Reeves downplays the notion of his own cultural iconicity — or that it could unnerve potential co-stars.

“I doubt it was that. I think it was me being the older guy. Maybe it’s working with an actor who they’ve seen before.”

effects and reality-warping plot, The Matrix is simply embedded in the pop-consciousness, as is Reeves’ black-coated, kung fu messiah Neo.

Indeed, when the topic of the franchise-that-won’t-go-away arises, it’s all Reeves can do to flatten his voice and joke, “I am the ambassador of The Matrix trilogy. My operating hours are …”

At least we think he’s kidding. (More.)

The Ottawa Citizen poses the same question.

Once upon a time, Toronto’s Keanu Reeves was associated with his dim-witted dude from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Now he’s known as the nuanced Neo from The Matrix trilogy. What’s an actor to do?

If you’re Reeves, who has learned to cope, you make a sly joke in a sales-pitch voice about the latest typecasting. “Yes, I am the ambassador for The Matrix trilogy,” he says, smirking a little. “My operating hours are …”

Wit aside, the 43-year-old actor admits that he still gets inundated with Matrix questions. And not just from fans. On the set of the cop thriller Street Kings, for instance, fellow actors lightly grilled him for information.

[….]

Hugh Laurie with Forest Whitaker in “Street Kings”

The movie features Reeves as an enforcer for a corrupt police captain (Forest Whitaker). When his former partner is murdered, Reeves’ dirty cop starts to question what he’s doing, but not before violently defending himself.

The part may be one of Reeves’ darkest and most demanding, but that suited him just fine. “I like to be pushed to a place I don’t normally live,” he notes. “And I get to kill eight people, so that’s a good role.”

To give authenticity to his portrayal, he immersed himself in weapons training and police procedures, with help from former L.A. cops. He not only learned attitude but also the specific footwork required when entering a dangerous area.

“I wasn’t very good,” he confesses. “So I had to practise, practise, practise, just to seem like I knew what I was doing without thinking about it.” (More.)

Read more about Reeves efforts to reinvent himself.

More on “Street Kings” and “Street Kings” reviews.

Here’s a great behind-the-scenes featurette with interviews with Keanu Reeves, Chris Evans, Forest Whitaker, Cedric the Entertainer, and Common.