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The Secret Level anthology trailer had an image that drove the Internet wild: a face that looks like Keanu Reeves. Yet, for a long time, the anthology’s creator Tim Miller didn’t confirm the actor’s involvement. Secret Level? Or open secret? 

New York Comic Con made it official, folks. Miller and supervising director Dave Wilson came to New York Comic Con to finally confirm the John Wick star, much to the delight of the room. Miller described Reeves’ role as an “[emotionally] damaged” mech pilot in a “Top Gun Meets Drive” Armored Core take.

Reeves previously talked with Miller and Wilson for a different project, one that “ultimately didn’t happen,” in Miller’s words, that may have been Love Death & Robots (a series they affirmed Reeves was a fan of). But the meeting ended up leading Reeves ino the CG mecha suit of Armored Core. In Wilson’s account, “We had all the artwork with the series up on the walls, and Reeves was like, ‘Well, what is this?’ and we moved on from there.” Wilson attested that Reeves showed his dedication by sending a video affirming, “I would like to be this junkie tech pilot.”

Wilson said of the short – penned by sci-fi author Peter Watts – that they leaned into the humanity in the mechas, saying, “The whole point is to showcase the pilots inside the core. We wanted to get a glimpse of the characters that make it special.” Wilson asserted that he didn’t want the conventional badassery of “Top Gun pilots of rippling muscles”; He wanted the human junkie looking for a ride. That premise must have resonated with a man famous for playing “The One” of the Matrix or a pooch-caring assassin.

Wilson described the short as the “Conflict with the need to belong and the want to be special.” Woah, that’s a plumb role for Reeves.

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