Mr. Anderson presents an interesting acting challenge. To play him from the "The Matrix" through its subsequent sequels, an actor needs to depict frustration, anger, confidence, confusion, sadness, inner peace, dissociation, and longing. But the actor also needs to keep these emotions slow, as if Neo were experiencing them through a pane of glass.
In other words, no one but Reeves could've realized the character so perfectly.
Reeves hooks into the idea that, given who Neo is, he often feels separated from his emotions even when he's unaware that he lives in a simulation. He has them still, but they always feel a bit alien, as though he's experiencing someone's feelings for them. When finally "awakened," he still often seems emotionally removed from himself. However, this reflects both the trauma of finding out the whole of existence as you know it is a lie and Neo's role in both worlds. When he's jacked in, he can see the code of the false universe. When he's outside the simulation, his life is still defined by what he must do in the program. Reeves navigates that sense of being divided without ever losing Neo's humanity.
