The photo behind Neo in The Matrix Resurrections came from a restaurant visit in 1997, when chef Peter Fang made Keanu Reeves wait in line, mistook him for Sean Connery, and got a thank-you for the mix-up.
Fang founded House of Nanking at 919 Kearny Street in San Francisco. His daughter Kathy was still in high school when she recognized Reeves in the queue and asked her father to let him skip ahead.
He refused. Even Francis Ford Coppola had to wait his turn.
In a September 30, 2025 interview with the San Francisco Standard, Peter explained his rule: “You can never let any people, especially movie stars or rich men, cut the line to get in… House of Nanking has to treat all kinds of people equally.”
He went over to explain that to Reeves, then called for his daughter: “Kathy, come take a picture! It’s him! It’s Sean Connery!” Peter rarely watched movies. Kathy apologized, but Reeves thanked him and said he was deeply honored by the comparison to an actor as talented as Connery.
Kathy took their picture with a disposable camera. The snapshot became a fixture by the restaurant’s front window. She described Reeves as “such a gentleman” and “the nicest person in the industry.”
Reeves, director Lana Wachowski and members of the Matrix crew were longtime customers. The 1999 film even has Neo point out a noodle spot and say, “Really good noodles.” In February 2020, 23 years after that mistaken introduction, Reeves returned to House of Nanking to film The Matrix Resurrections.
Kathy was 36 weeks pregnant when the production came in. The crew arrived at 5 a.m., and she and Peter handled the kitchen themselves. They prepared roughly 20 servings of yang chun noodles for filming, keeping each bowl steaming: wheat noodles with a clear bone broth, soy, sesame and scallions.
Wachowski wanted to preserve the room’s lived-in appearance. The props team made copies of its newspaper clippings and awards and returned them to their original positions. Kathy’s 1997 snapshot remained visible behind Neo as he ate.
Reeves also posed with Kathy to recreate the old photo. Afterward, the crew supplied a cleaner print, allowing the original to remain by the window. Kathy has credited that photo with helping secure the restaurant’s place in the film, calling the crew “O.G. customers.”
The shoot left another connection to the character. Kathy and her husband, Caleb Sima, had planned to call their son Hawk. After filming, with Sima’s hacker background also making the name feel fitting, they named him Neo.
