Larry Wachowski won't see a dime from ''Matrix''
”Matrix” writing/directing brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski don’t give interviews, ostensibly because they want their work to speak for itself. But Larry Wachowski may also be keeping a low profile to avoid talking about his personal life, which, in the days since ”The Matrix Reloaded” opened, has been getting increasingly messy. First was the accusation in a British paper on Sunday by a man who claims Wachowski stole his wife, a professional dominatrix. Then came the revelation that Wachowski’s estranged wife, who filed for divorce last year, was granted an injunction on May 14, the day ”Reloaded” opened, to freeze her husband’s financial assets, since she claims he’s been holding out on her. Which means that, despite the fortune rolling in from the film, he isn’t likely to see a dime of it for a long time, if ever.
Papers filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Wachowski’s wife, Thea Bloom, surfaced Wednesday at the Smoking Gun. Bloom, who started dating Wachowski in college in 1984 and married him in 1993, separated from him last July ”based on very intimate circumstances,” which she declined to specify in her filing ”for reasons of his personal privacy.” However, she said, ”I believe Larry has been extremely dishonest with me in our personal life, and I believe he is hiding information from me regarding our financial affairs.” The court papers also detail the brothers’ pay deals for the two ”Matrix” sequels and tie-in products. Besides the $5 million the brothers earned for writing the two movies and the $6.6 million they earned for directing them, they were each due to receive 5 percent of the grosses, which had already reached $152 million by Tuesday.
Apparently, it’s not just the 37-year-old filmmaker’s finances that are tied up. Wachowski is reportedly seeing Karin Winslow, a professional dominatrix whose husband, Jake Miller, told the London Sunday Mail and the New York Post that Wachowski had stolen his wife away. He also said Wachowski was a cross-dresser and that he’d seen Wachowski and Winslow in action together. (Wachowski was photographed at a recent premiere of ”Reloaded” wearing dangly earrings, with a woman, presumably Winslow, on his arm.) ”When Larry walked down the red carpet with my wife, he was probably wearing a bra and panties under his suit,” Miller told the Mail. Miller also said he was a transsexual himself.
Reps for Wachowski have not commented on the Miller remarks or the divorce case. Warner Bros., distributor of the ”Matrix” movies, hasn’t officially commented either, but one nameless Warner representative told the Chicago Sun-Times that Miller ”sounds like a guy who is just trying to piggyback on the ‘Matrix’ bandwagon and is using the brothers’ success to bring attention to his pathetic little self.” The Sun-Times cited another ”major honcho” close to the trilogy as saying, ”Now I know why Larry paid so much attention during our costuming meetings.”