Neil Patrick Harris

You play a Psychiatrist in Matrix 4 who treats Thomas Anderson when he is doubting his sanity. Can you tell us about your character?

I play Thomas Anderson’s analyst, and my role is pretty much to try and keep his character from flipping out. I try and keep him as calm and as placated and as relaxed and as worry-free as possible.

That’s really interesting because according to the trailer. Are you the one who’s actually prescribing the blue pills to him?

Sure.

There are a lot of interesting going around your character theories that you are an agent yourself. You are potentially the architect in a different form.

The Matrix is just filled with theorizing. There’s fan fiction, there are all kinds of allegory suggestions. I think the fact that we’re not able to talk about it probably fuels speculation because you’re not allowed to say yes or no, too much of anything. I’m anxious for you to see the movie and tell me what you think.

How does it feel for you to collaborate with Gucci these days on your track, Muwop? How does it feel for you to actually be rapping about him early in the day or writing lyrics about him and now actually working with him?

Right, that was definitely a bucket list feature for me. That was huge. It’s always different. You look up to someone, and they’re an inspiration for you, but when you meet them and they’re everything that you expected them to be, just so humble, just so down to earth. Just cool as hell. Gucci was definitely that, so that was definitely dope as hell.

Can you tell us about your creative process? Do you prefer to write the rhymes first or do you work on the beats?

I think because I’m so young and growing as an artist and as a woman at the same time, it’d be all over the place to be honest. At first, it was strictly writing physically, like a pen and a pad right into a beat. Then I started learning how to freestyle more. Actually, before that, then I started writing in my notes on iPhone, on my notes. Then I started learning how to freestyle more. I would go in the booth and just hear the beat and start just dropping lines, like bar for bar or whatever, punching it. Then now, up-to-date, I pretty much just do a blend of everything, just depending on my mood or what space I’m in at that time. I could make the beat with the producer and then go from there. Or I’ll have a topic that I specifically already want to talk about anyways, and then build the song around that topic. It could just go anyway because I’m just growing. I’m still growing.

You have awesome creative collaborations so far. How do you choose your collaborations?

I think a lot of the collaborations be just organic. I’ll really actually hear that person on the beat, or when I’m making a song, I have them in mind. Either/or, but before or after the song is made, I choose them. Then I’ll either reach out to them personally, like in the DM or we might have a mutual friend or something like that, or I have the label reach out. It’s 99.9% of the time me saying, “Oh, I hear such and such on this beat. Let’s reach out.”

Can you tell us about working with Lana Wachowski?

Wow, Lana is so knowledgeable and has such a deep and thorough skillset at directing this type of movie because she and her sister directed three in the past. She’s helming this on her own, but it’s miraculous to see her brain work. Then as a separate acknowledgment, she is so evolved as a human and she is such a seeker of truth that in previous movies when she wanted artificial light, and intentionally artificial light so that it felt like you were living within a graphic novel of sorts, she now operates from a much more natural light frame of mind.
Literal natural light filming at certain times during the day and then stoping because the light has changed, but also just a fluidity to the set, to the hours, to the process in a way I’ve never seen before. For a giant movie, I just assumed there would be storyboards and everything would have been talked through, and you’d be checking off shots from a list, and she doesn’t work that way. No rehearsing, just filming and changing and exploring and really trying to find what’s real. That’s so counter-intuitive to what they were trying to accomplish with the first ones.

When were you offered this role? How did you hear about the project?

No, I didn’t know anything about it. I got an email from my manager asking if I would get on a Zoom call and get to know this director. I wasn’t even told who the director was. Then I was told who the director was, and I thought, “I wonder if it has to do with this.” I wasn’t even told it was for Matrix anything. I was a fan of Sense8 and so I just liked what Lana was doing. There’s such freedom to her process. We talked and we hit it off, and then she wanted me to fly to San Francisco to meet with her in person and to work on sides, and then I knew what it was about and thought it was a super cool idea. The analyst is calm, and she wanted to hire someone that you really believed was soothing and calming and reassuring energy. That’s what we talked through mostly, and then I wound up getting the gig. It was crazy.

Do you think Lana’s approach is inventive and brave going ahead with the 4th installment?

I do because I think this story is necessary for her to tell. She had a personal reason to want to contemplate the idea of resurrection and what that means to her, but she’s also very intent on film being art. I really value that the fourth movie in a franchise could not be seen as art, but as commerce, and I know that that is not the case here. Filming it, watching it, and watching her, and seeing Keanu and Carrie-Anne and how fully realized they are as people and what they bring to these roles is I think exciting. I hope fans concur that this feels like an arthouse movie of a gigantic scale.

Would you be excited to work with Lana again?

I’d work with Lana, any chance. Any opportunity she would allow me would be super fun.

Can you tell us about working with your castmates?

Kind of crazy. I just am amazed with what a gentleman Keanu Reeves is. You don’t hear a lot about him in his personal life, his personal life is fairly personal. I didn’t want to be disappointed when I met him or worked with him, and I was playing his analyst, so I was going to be working with him. He is so present, and he is so generous and legitimately kind. He was always on set sitting in a chair, observing, not just leaving to go to his motorhome until it was his close-up and then coming out. Which he had every right to behave that way, because he’s Keanu Reeves and he’s made all kinds of gigantic movies, but in point of fact, he’s the opposite of that. He was very collaborative and soft-spoken and wise, and handsome, and I just think he’s really still at the top of his game, so it was a joy.
Then Carrie-Anne Moss is more beautiful than she has ever been if that’s possible. 18 years after the first movie where she was stunning, she’s just the loveliest energy. It was really a good experience with nice people. Jonathan Groff is super nice, and Yahya Mateen is so nice, and Jessica Henwick is the nicest person. They’re all just lovely, so getting to be in San Francisco with lovely people and then go to Berlin after COVID and be one of only a few movies filming under strict protocols with people that you really like, and that you can make art with, and it’s a Matrix movie, that was crazy. That was unusual. I’m glad it was that and not the opposite.

When the original Matrix came out, did you ever think that you will be part of it at some point?

No, not really. My path was not an action film, was not a sci-fi movie. I took a turn in Starship Troopers, and that was cool, but it felt like a one-off. I was more amazed watching the first film, just the technological advances were made because that was pre-computer generated assist with all these shots. To see these locations and to see blending and morphing and bullet time and having no idea how any of that was created was really like a magic show to me. I was anxious to know how all of it was done. We now live in a world where anything can happen on film, and you just assume that there’s a team of special effects people that are making everything happen. That’s how it works, but back then, there were fewer options. There weren’t green-screen sets, and there weren’t a lot of animatics and things. I loved the technical part of the first Matrix.

Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? The first installments were heavily revolving around vivid dreams and déjà vu. What’s your take?

My beliefs on déjà vu are very clinical. I think that our brain function happens and that sometimes you’ll see something and then you don’t recognize that you’ve seen it until a split second later, in which case you think you’ve already seen it. That’s just me personally. I think I think what is interesting about the first film is how the conversation about technology potentially being much more a part of our lives than we realize was a new idea and a threatening one, and now 18 years later, it almost feels scarily true. Not necessarily that we are being run by machines as one big simulation, but that the technology has ulterior motives and has a larger purpose.
We do live in an algorithmic world where news is not necessarily factual but designed just for what we will be excited by, and we live in a world where we create avatars that don’t look like us that represent us. That is almost soothsayer fodder that all of that stuff had happened. It makes the first movie almost more relevant. I think in Matrix Resurrections, they continue that conversation.

Have you screened the final cut?

Yes, I got to see it a couple of weeks ago in a big theater. The score is such a part of it. Lana has it scored, and all of that, before the movie’s shot so that she is listening to the music and already has the music in mind when she’s doing the sequences, which is unique as well. I think because that’s their dynamic, being able to watch it in an auditorium space where the surround sound is a big part of the puzzle is important. I encourage you to watch it on as big a screen with as great a sound as possible because it does make a difference.

Can you tell us about Wondercade?

Wondercade’s great. I feel like I’ve done enough weird things in my life that I’m happy to now give recommendations and opinions on things I think are cool, or recipes that are worth cooking, or drinks that are worth shaking. It’s just a weekly newsletter that’s free. No algorithms. Just things that I find talk worthy, and hoping people sign up and subscribe and learn a magic trick or two or cool places to visit. It’s taken off. It’s doing really well, so I’m proud of it. This is much more personal to me. This is me and my family and the things that I find cool. It steers much less about my characters and more just about my world and my brain. I love magic. I love immersive theater. I love gaming. I love puzzles. I love restaurants. I think it skews more in that direction.

Can you tell us about your project with Darren Star?

It’s called Uncoupled. We’re in the middle of filming it actually. It’s eight episodes for Netflix. It’ll be out sometime next year. About my character, Michael, who’s in a long, monogamous relationship with his boyfriend. The boyfriend leaves Michael on his 50th birthday that Michael throws. Then he’s having to figure out what happened and how to date again as a 47-year-old gay man in a 2021 world, which is just generationally different. It’s funny. It’s got a Sex in the City vibe but a gay slant. I have to watch what I eat because I’m naked in a lot of it. I’m anxious to see how it all turns out.

How do you tell us about working with Mike Ruiz on the photoshoot?

I love Mike. Getting to be on the model side of a Mike reshoot is something I never really imagined that I would be doing because I’m just a fan of his work, but I’m not super runway, and so it was fun to play in that sandbox. He’s such a lovely guy and makes you feel so comfortable. It’s fun to wear clothes you would not normally wear and get to make sexy faces.

You guys went all in! We haven’t done anything like that in terms of the leather outfits…

He wanted leather! He was very into the leather thing.

This question is from Mike Ruiz: How do you feel about being the leather daddy for a day?

It’s fun. I only am able to feel comfortable dressing up in those costumes and owning it in a photoshoot setting. If those clothes were just around and I put them on, I wouldn’t feel like I could take ownership of it because it’s not what I would just normally wear in my life. If I were to do that in a Halloween costume kind of way, then it would seem like I was making a joke out of it. It was fun to be with fog machine and sexy lighting and get to actually wear it authentically and trust that Mike is going to make me look halfway decent.

Do you think Barney would approve this photoshoot?

A different type of suit, isn’t it?

You actually got married in Italy, and you love coming back to this area and also the Riviera on the French side and Italian side. Are there any specific places that you love here? Why did you decide to get married here instead of anywhere else?

Italy for us, everywhere you look, was something of quality. That the quality of life there, and really that whole region, is valued in a way that I don’t think it is in the States. Being able to have a simple salad is so delicious because it came from local markets and from local farms. The simplest wine is so delicious, sulfite-free, made down the road. There was something immediate and beautiful about the simplicity of all of it. That was the rationale behind getting married in Perugia. Then we spent time in Monaco a couple of years ago. We usually go and vacation for a week or so a year with Elton and David, because our kids are close. From there, we usually take a nice little trip over to Monaco.
We went to Bono’s House, which was very exciting, because he and his wife are the loveliest, and we got to sit and see the water and eat a delicious meal at his place. Then another time we saw– Who did we see? It was Liza Minnelli, perform at that theatre that the roof can open up in Monaco.

If you could give your younger self advice, what would it be?

I would probably tell my younger self to stay true to who you are and recognize that what makes you different is what makes you special. We spend a lot of time in life trying to be like everyone else, to assimilate, but I think I found as I’ve gotten older that what I am most impressed by in others is what makes them unique and different, our differences are our strengths.