For those of us who were introduced to the world of Cyberpunk through Cyberpunk 2077, it's hard to imagine Johnny Silverhand as anything other than the greasy rockerboy that CD Projekt Red gave us. However, in the source material, he was very different, looking a whole lot like David Bowie.
Despite this, series creator Mike Pondsmith understood that the character design needed to be changed to better fit what modern audiences imagine when they picture a rock star - he just wasn't expecting Keanu Reeves to be playing him. This had nothing to do with the look, but rather the personality, because as he puts it, Reeves is just too damn nice.
This comes from a talk at Digital Dragons 2025, in which Pondsmith discussed some of the changes made in Cyberpunk 2077, with one of the biggest being Johnny's new look.
"I said, you got Keanu Reeves? He's too nice to be Johnny," Pondsmith laughs. "Johnny is an asshole. He has reasons to be, but yeah, Johnny was not a nice guy."
Despite this initial apprehension, he didn't object to the decision. "I didn't have any problems once I understood where they were going with it," he explains.
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