Matrix Cast All Talk Sequels

Though the Wachowski brothers, the visionary writer-directors behind "The Matrix" and its two sequels, are busy setting up the day's filming, present at the press conference are "Matrix" trilogy producer Joel Silver, as well as cast members Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Harold Perrineau, Nona Gaye and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Silver, whose name is synonymous with big action features, describes the second and third films of the trilogy as "not two movies – it's just one enormous movie that's being cut in half and shown in two halves."

On these two halves, however, principal photography is only half the battle as months' worth of visual effects work remain to be overlaid on both movies -- and a lot has changed since even the 1999 blockbuster.

"The computer is allowing us to do things that we never dreamed we could do before," Silver explains. "The bullet-time sequences (in 'The Matrix') were in the embryonic stage of what the computer can do. Now it's at such a level that (the Wachowskis) can do anything they want."

About the notoriously secretive Wachowskis, brothers Larry and Andy, Fishburne, who once again takes on the role of rebel leader Morpheus, jokes, "Little is known about the Wachowski brothers. They have a secret code that exists between the two of them. They're not very verbal, but they are incredibly trusting of who we are and what we bring. Their visual style makes it very interesting to be on set and to be with them when they're composing or creating these wonderful shots."

Returning from the original film are Keanu Reeves as Neo, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity, Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving as the villainous Agent Smith. They are joined by singer/model Nona Gaye (daughter of Marvin Gaye) playing a resident of the "real world" of Zion named Zee, Harold Perrineau as her husband, Link, and Jada Pinkett Smith as the mysterious Niobe, a woman of Zion who doesn't believe Neo could be "the chosen one" at the beginning of the new movies.

Pinkett Smith, along with the rest of the key cast, participated in months of rigorous training to prepare for the substantial physicality required for their roles.

"I've never had such intense training in my life and I have to say that I'm in the best condition that I've ever been in at 31," Pinkett Smith admits. "I had no idea that I can do half the stuff I can do!"

"A lot of people, I don't think, understand just how incredibly taxing all this work is physically," Fishburne adds. "If you look at 'Revisited,' there's a small clip of Keanu at rest off somewhere and there's steam rising up off his head. The amount of time and the hours that we are required to train are the kind of hours that professional athletes deal with."

As for how Reeves keeps up with all this, the characteristically tight-lighted actor reveals, "It's been a very strict diet and very vigorous, rigorous training."