- [Interviewer] How old were you when you decided
you really wanted to be an actor?
Oh my gosh, this really is a retrospective,
I didn't know. (laughs) well, we're gonna make it
painless, you watch.
What am I up to?
I'm up here shooting a Paula Abdul video.
First of all, Bill and Ted live in their own place.
They work at a place called Pretzels 'n' Cheese.
They're still with Wyld Stallyns.
The girlfriends, the babes, the princesses
are living in another place.
So I'm a rookie F.B.I. agent named Johnny Utah.
Yeah, in order to catch the bad guys,
I'm an ex-football player, my knee went out.
And I'm kind of a control freak and an adrenaline junkie.
And I go undercover to catch these bank robbers.
And my partner, Gary Busey, thinks their surfers.
So the silly thing is that there's a,
if the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed.
And if the bus goes back under
50 miles an hour, it'll blow up.
Keanu! Keanu!
Keanu! Keanu, this way!
Keanu! Keanu!
I don't think Parenthood, I can't,
I don't think Tod in that film can be considered my film.
You know what I mean?
I think I have just a, I wouldn't say,
my film, Parenthood.
(interview and Keanu laugh)
- [Interviewer] You're the guy under the bed!
I'm the guy under the bed, genius!
He's trying to answer the question of, what is the Matrix?
And Lawrence Fishburne, his character, Morpheus, says,
you feel there's something wrong with the world.
You can't say what it is, but it's like
a splinter in your mind driving you mad.
My wife gave me a dog to love for my grief.
My final gift from my wife.
But then they kill the dog and steal my car.
Then John Wick unburies, breaks open,
and gets his guns back.
One of the things
that's great about acting,
and one of the reasons I do it,
is that you get to not only learn about other people,
but through the dramatic action, through the stories,
hopefully you get to learn more about yourself.
You haven't been in a huge Hollywood film,
like one of those sequels or something like that.
Are you consciously avoiding those?
(Keanu laughs) Like, making a real, you know?
Yes, I am, I'm an artist and I feel
that Hollywood, I'm not going to pander.
Please hire me, I wanna be in a 80 million hit.
- [Interviewer] Did the success of Bill of Ted
kinda throw you for a loop, given how long
it took to get on the shelf?
Yeah, that was a pleasant surprise, most definitely.
- [Interviewer] Did you think that if it ever got
to an audience, it would have that kind of a.
No, I mean, who knows, right?
I mean, I didn't think, I was at this play.
And this guy goes, yeah, me and my friend,
we were Bill and Ted for Halloween.
I went, really?
(laughs) Wow, wow.
And now you can hear it on computers.
Like when you press, when you make a mistake,
(laughs) it goes like, excellent, or does whatever, right?
It's kinda cheesy.
So it's in the fabric now, it's part of the big picture.
Yikes. (laughs)
So the surfing flick's out too, Point Break.
Was that actually you surfing on it?
Yeah, most of the, yeah, falling, surfing,
falling, surfing. Look it, see how
they got us over there?
- [Both] Whoa.
When I firs learned about the gig, I went to Kauai
to learn how to surf with a friend of mine.
And I got creamed, creamed.
I mean, I had my, I was such a kook, I had my,
my leash on the wrong foot,
I was just getting beat up.
And then I started surfing.
And I caught a couple waves.
Surfing, change your life.
Me and Keanu were, put in some word,
and we're hoping that it'll be called Bill and Ted Two.
Or the Second Bill and Ted.
Yeah, another Bill and Ted
would be good. (Keanu fake snores)
Another Bill and Ted movie. Nah, no, no, no, no, no!
No, man, that's stupid. There was another one.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure Number Two.
(Keanu grunting and growling) Bill and Ted's Excellent
Adventure: The Sequel, that's another good one we like.
(Keanu growling) We're fond of that one.
Bill and Ted are Back.
And then there was a cereal.
And then there was a thing.
And then came out the toys!
K-tel presents Bill and Ted. (Keanu making nonsense sounds)
Ring it up for sale!
That's the word.
- [Interviewer] You got anything else in production?
No, I'm unemployed.
For about a week.
Well, I don't know, man, you don't know
the future, right? Yeah, that's true.
It's a bugger.
- [Paparazzo] Keanu, can we get some pictures?
Where am I going?
I was someone who was just like,
the happiest dog in the world, just in the moment.
And there was a, I think it was easy to,
I made, I think, a good tag line.
You know, I was an easy print.
To be like, wow, this most
excellent dude is like, excellent.
Because I couldn't sit down and say,
oh, yes, the clown aspect I brought forward from the
Italian comedies of the 1560s,
which is actually what I did.
You couldn't say, you know.
I'm kinda goofy, so I think it was easy to write that.
- [Interviewer] But things have changed?
No.
I'm interested in variety.
So that's an actor's, most actors' dream
is to play different parts in different
places and different genres, and so far,
I've had the benefit of that.
So hopefully it'll continue.
Carrie-Anne Moss got to do a cartwheel
off of a wall, run on a wall.
I did a back-flip, front-flip, ran up a wall, flying.
And it's just, for me, it's just,
when you get it, it's just so much fun.
You know, you're flying.
One of my hopes is to be able to make
films that are not run of the mill.
In whatever genre it is, kinda pushing the genre, or.
Yeah, I'm trying to do, I'm not trying to do.
We're here on the set of John Wick
and John's been cut, he's been bloodied,
beaten. Poor, John.
Yeah, it's good.
The stunt coordinator I got a chance to talk to too,
they all go way back with you obviously.
And they say that you really,
if you're practicing for eight hours in a car,
you want an extra hour or two.
Who wouldn't?
Well, I was gonna say,
some actors wouldn't. You're getting professional
training from a professional stunt driver.
And they're like, just go do a 180, okay.
It's like fantasy camp.
Yeah, and they're gonna teach you
how to do a slide into a 90 and hit a mark.
I'm like, yeah, how 'bout some drifting?
Yeah, sure, you wanna go home?
No, I don't wanna go home.
So we kinda put all our money up front
in the prep and development.
And made Keanu do everything we could
so we didn't have to cut
and take up more time. Well, face it, he wanted it.
I know you wanted all of it. Yes, yes.
As much as you possibly
can, right? Give it to me.
Well there's that thing of wanting to
be there now and experience life, and experience,
Lou Reed says, new sensations, you know?
I guess it's connected to,
it's connected to a search for yourself and desire.
Desire for experience,
for sensory, all, using senses.
I've jumped from a car onto a bus.
Ooh!
At around 50 miles an hour, that was fun.
So there's a sensory thing, and also
how's that connected to, you know, internally.
Who am I, what could I be?
What do I like, what I am I really, who am I really?
My character's trying to, and other characters
are trying to,
I guess figure out where they are.
And define their world for themselves.
And then also just the frivolity
and adventurous aspect of it.
Those two things, that meshing of trying
to find yourself, and also adventure.
So we might be doing Bill and Ted, yeah.
What's the prep, is there any prep involved?
Yeah, we're working on it, yeah, yeah.
I've been meeting with Alex, writers,
and stuff, we have a good story.
And yeah, it's gonna, I have to,
right now I'm here. Right.
One thing at a time. Right now I'm here.
We're like, here.
(interviewer laughs) Yeah.