Carrie-Anne Moss on the ‘Matrix’ Movies and Playing an Action Hero in Her 50s

The actress synonymous with Trinity faced the weight of expectations when she reunited with Keanu Reeves and Lana Wachowski for the new sequel.

Carrie-Anne Moss was 32 when she joined the pantheon of science-fiction film legends. Taking her place alongside Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, Moss played Trinity in “The Matrix” (1999), defying gravity with a martial-arts ballet. Lithe, pale, clad in form-fitting leather and PVC, Trinity and Keanu Reeves’s Neo formed two androgynous halves of a heroic whole in a tale of man vs. machine that became a worldwide cultural obsession.

The film’s blockbuster success spawned two immediate sequels, “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” (both released in 2003). Now, nearly two decades on, Moss is reprising her career-defining role for “The Matrix Resurrections,” written and directed by Lana Wachowski. Arriving in theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 22, “Resurrections” required the now-54-year-old Moss to undergo weeks of intensive training before embarking on a demanding shoot that took the cast to San Francisco and Germany, among other locations.

Additionally, she had to shoulder the tremendous weight of expectation — it’s exceedingly rare for a woman over 50 to be both an action star and the romantic lead in a major studio film. “I feel a sense of responsibility to those women who love Trinity and felt ignited by her to be authentic at this age, and not be an idea that is unattainable and is perpetuating this myth about what it means to be a woman,” the friendly, down-to-earth Moss told me in a recent video interview from her home on the East Coast. “I carried that with me through the process.”