The Myth of Room Service

I don't quite recall where I originally heard that the "I want room service!" monologue in Johnny Mnemonic was improvised by Mr. Reeves (I even mentioned something about it in a comment on the Backlot). Just another piece of Keanu Lore, I suppose.

Anyway, Willliam Gibson says this about that speech in today's blog entry:

The "I Want Room Service" speech: Keanu asked for something a little more projective, for this scene, so I sat up, one night, in the hotel on Avenue Road, writing this speech out, longhand, on a yellow legal pad. Delivered it to the set in the morning. Keanu and and Robert Longo both liked it, so I went back to Vancouver. They went off to Montreal, shortly after, to shoot the under-bridge exteriors. I don't remember when I first saw what they did with it, but I had written it imagining Johnny hissing it petulantly into Jane's face, up close, eyeball to eyeball, and the declamation from atop a gomi-mound threw me for a loop. It took a while to get used to, but eventually it became one of my three or four favorite scene in the film. It's Johnny's infantile self, pure and simple, and the plummetting VW-carcass full of Molatov cocktails is like a wake-up call from a universe rapidly losing its patience with him.

I tried to find the discussion thread that he wrote this in response to, but I don't think it's this one. I'll have to look deeper later. It's Friday night and I'm trying to leave work.

Thanks to Scott for pointing me there.
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Update, May 10:

Mr. Gibson talks more about JM in this entry.

it wahs | from inside the mind of krix at May 09, 2003 05:49 PM .