Keanu Reeves hit Hollywood like a cool breeze in the '80s — that's what his name means in Hawaiian
— and ever since, he's been one of cinema's most intriguing and versatile actors. But is his poetry
any good? Was Alice Cooper really his babysitter? Here's the untold truth of Keanu Reeves.
When Reeves went to "The Late Show" in December 2021 to promote his return as Neo in "The Matrix:
Resurrections", Stephen Colbert took it upon himself to divert the conversation a bit and
ask him about "Sad Keanu" — an immensely popular meme based on a 2010 picture of Reeves sullenly
eating a sandwich on a bench. Reeves explained his state of mind at the time of the iconic meal:
"I was thinking. I had some stuff going on [...] I was hungry."
Like any of us, Reeves was just trying to fill his stomach and ponder the complexities of life
while doing so — but he inadvertently provided the internet with one of the most viral memes of all
time. Back in 2011, when the meme was still pretty fresh, he told BBC how he really feels about it:
"I mean, do I wish I didn't get my picture taken,
and while I was eating a sandwich on the streets of New York? Yeah."
Living is something that Keanu Reeves has been doing for a long time. The actor was born in 1964,
but some people on the internet have come to believe that Reeves is a whole lot older than 57.
In 2010, a Reddit poster noted that there is a striking resemblance between Reeves
and portraits of Paul Mounet, a French actor who died in the early 20th century
but whose body was never found. Not long after the post began drawing attention,
someone made a small addition to Mounet's Wikipedia page, writing:
"He currently acts under the pseudonym of Keanu Reeves.
The source of his eternal youth is not known."
The addition went unchanged for several weeks, and Reeves' immortality conspiracy was born.
It didn't take long for the official "Keanu Reeves is Immortal" website to enter the scene.
The site features pictures of Reeves throughout the years,
and he does appear to age at about the same rate as Paul Rudd. In addition to Mounet,
Reeves is also "confirmed" to have been King Charlemagne, who lived from 748 to 814
and crowned his son as king shortly before dying and undergoing a rushed winter burial.
It's a small world, after all. Keanu Reeves might have played in Dogstar through the nineties,
but his connection to rock 'n' roll goes back way further than that.
In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Reeves confirmed that Alice Cooper
used to babysit him as a kid. Reeves explained that he grew up in Toronto,
just down the street from a recording studio called Nimbus 9. Reeves' mother was a costume
designer who often worked with musicians, and she happened to have a connection with Alice Cooper.
Reeves confessed that he doesn't actually remember spending any time with the rock legend. He said:
"That's so rad."
"I mean, I don't know how that could actually, possibly happen, so, but it did, supposedly."
"Yeah!"
The only part of the experience that Reeves
can recall is a prank that Cooper pulled. He recounted:
"But I do remember that, I remember that he, uh, that there was fake poo in the fridge."
Of course, actors and rock stars cross paths all the time, but it's
not often that their encounters lead to a story this delightful.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and Keanu Reeves got his start in the movie business — partially
against his will — when he was still just a teenager. Reeves' stepfather, Paul Aaron, was
working on his second feature film the summer that Reeves turned fifteen. Reeves told The Guardian:
"It was my summer holiday from school. And for a parent, it's, like, what do you do
with this kid over the summer? I know, we'll make him a production assistant on a movie!"
"A Force of One" starring Chuck Norris wasn't the most auspicious start to a film career,
but the job got Reeves invested in the magic of making movies. Reeves said:
"I was watching the grips, I was watching actors, I was seeing how a film set really works."
He spent weeks learning the ins and outs of a film set,
but mostly he fetched buckets of ice to keep the drinks and snacks cool. Still,
he learned his most important lesson about filmmaking on that set. He said:
"A movie is all-hands-on-deck. I love all-hands-on-deck."
That love has never left Reeves, and neither has his work ethic.
During the production of "John Wick 4," Reeves blew up online yet again
when someone caught footage of him lugging heavy equipment around like another crew member.
Forty-two years later, Reeves is just as hardworking as ever.
In one of Keanu Reeves' earliest roles, he plays a hardworking cyclist who powers
through a long race and gets rewarded with a cool glass bottle of Coca-Cola.
"Hey, I'm proud of you. Really proud!" "A coke!"
Reeves reminisced about the role on "The Late Late Show with James Corden,"
and the memories brought a wide smile to his face. The three-day commercial shoot was one
of Reeves' first tastes of being a working actor, and all these years later, he can
still enthusiastically recall the excitement and camaraderie that he felt on the set.
With Reeves' reputation for being one of the most hardworking actors in Hollywood,
it will probably surprise no one that he shaved his legs for the role. There aren't many actors,
even at the beginning of their careers, who would go that far for a minute-long Coke commercial.
Because of his starring roles in major Hollywood blockbusters, people often think of Keanu Reeves
as an American movie star, but that couldn't be further from the truth. If anything,
Reeves is more of an international man of mystery. Reeves was born in Lebanon after his parents —
English-born Patricia and Chinese-Hawaiian Samuel — met on a beach in Beirut. Shortly after Reeves'
birth, the family moved to Australia, and not long after that, his parents separated. Ultimately,
Patricia relocated the family to New York for a brief stint before settling in Toronto.
Reeves has been a Canadian citizen for most of his life,
though his frequent trips to Los Angeles and other parts of the world obscure that
fact for most of his fans. When he was asked in an interview why he keeps his Canadian
citizenship despite spending so much of his time in the United States, he said:
"I sometimes wonder. I've even regretted not having American citizenship,
especially at election times."
Though Reeves clarified that he isn't an activist,
he does have a strong belief that elections are important. He said:
"Ideally, I would take out dual nationality."
Dual citizenship might be Reeves' preference, but with over a hundred acting roles in under
40 years, he's hardly had the time to enjoy his Canadian citizenship,
much less seek out another country's.
When a famous actor pivots into writing a book or a series of poems, the results are usually
mixed at best. Keanu Reeves used the stereotype to his advantage with his
first poetry book "Ode to Happiness," which was published in 2011. Each page contains
a single line from Reeves paired with an illustration from his girlfriend — artist
Alexandra Grant. Grant told the BBC that "Ode to Happiness" began its life as a joke. She said:
"Our friend sat at Keanu's house one night listening to wonderfully sad self-pitying songs,
and Keanu, in the spirit of poking fun at them, began to write a poem."
The book begins with the line:
"I draw a hot sorrow bath/In my despair rooms."
It then continues on in that self-serious vein for the duration. Reeves is the first to acknowledge
that the overwrought style of the poem isn't meant to be taken seriously. Reeves told BBC:
"It's only personal in the sense of looking out and regarding my sense
of humor. I don't usually take baths in my despair room with a misery candle burning."
The collaboration was so successful that it led to a second book in 2016.
"Shadows" once again pairs poetry with art, but this time the coupling isn't so humorous.
Reeves told The Guardian that the book was an attempt to, quote,
"contextualize the grief" that he's faced in his life. He hoped that by writing about the grief,
he could, quote, "even be inspired by it, even find a certain pleasure in it."
As it turns out, poetry just wasn't enough to satisfy Reeves' seemingly bottomless artistic
drive. In the fall of 2017, he sat down with Boom! Studios to talk about a character and story idea
that had been lingering in his mind for ages. The meeting was the most Keanu-esque pitch imaginable:
He acted out various scenes from the story — which follows an immortal, hyper-violent man
constantly engaged in combat — and showed off his decades of fighting knowledge. Reeves said:
"It went, 'Comic book'. I went: 'Yeah!' Why not?"
And with that, "BRZRKR" was born. Reeves paired up with veteran comic writer Matt Kindt — the
mind behind "Mind MGMT" — to bring his story to fruition. The comic features an 80,000-year-old
man who, in Keanu's words, "could punch people's chests and their backs and rip people's arms off"
to life. The story was planned as a 12-issue miniseries, and Boom! launched a Kickstarter
campaign to gauge interest in the story. The studio ended up with $1.5 million in preorders.
The wildly successful comic is already being considered for a film adaptation,
and Reeves has stated that he "would love to play the role." The project still needs to
find its perfect director, but it likely won't be long before "BRZRKR" hits the big screen.
Though it wasn't his first time fighting his way through scenes and set pieces,
Keanu Reeves became known as an action movie star after "The Matrix."
"I know Kung Fu."
"Show me".
The film came out more than 20 years ago, but as he's gotten older, Reeves has continually
upped the ante. The "John Wick" films — directed by Reeves's "Matrix" stunt
double Chad Stahelski — are filled with the type of visceral action
that usually relies on camera tricks and highly trained martial artists. However,
Reeves famously prefers to handle the material himself. He told Sunday Today:
"I do all of the action. I'm 90% of what's happening there."
He says that doing action scenes in his 50s is "more about recovery" than when he
was younger — but if anything, he's gotten better with time.
Reeves doesn't constrain his action prowess to a single franchise, either — he shot some pretty
incredible stunts for his return to the Matrix in "The Matrix Resurrections." Reeves told Stephen
Colbert on "The Late Show" that he and Carrie-Anne Moss jumped off a 46-story building 19-20 times
to nail down the perfect shot. When asked why he didn't use CGI for the jump, Reeves said:
"Because it's Lana Wachowski, and it's the Matrix,
and you need natural light, and you want to do it real."
That's the dedication of someone who shaved
their legs for a commercial growing stronger with each new opportunity.
After all the time that Keanu Reeves has spent in front of the camera,
it seems only appropriate that he's gotten an opportunity to sit in the director's chair.
2013's "Man of Tai Chi" stars Tiger Hu Chen as a young martial artist who gets
in too deep in an underground fighting ring. Reeves not only directed the film,
but also stretched his acting range by starring as the film's main antagonist.
The film wasn't nearly as groundbreaking as
previous Reeves outings, but the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls it:
"[...] an agreeably old-fashioned picture for
martial arts fans — and a solid debut for first-time director Keanu Reeves."
Reeves hasn't directed a second film, but that doesn't mean he won't.
"BRZRKR" writer Matt Kindt has thrown Reeves' name into the hat for directing
the comic's film adaptation, telling The Washington Post:
"There's no one better to pull it off than him."
Keanu Reeves has acted in more movies than most people even aspire to,
but don't let that trick you into thinking that he's going
to disappear from the big screen any time soon. Reeves told The Guardian:
"Around the time I hit 40, there was this idea of creating more from my artistic loins."
He said that he often thinks about life like it's a reel of tape.
"When you're young, you have a big old reel of that tape left, right? And so,
it appears to revolve slowly. Then, time passes,
and there's less and less tape left on the reel. It spins faster. It spins faster."
These days Reeves is trying to move just as fast as his spinning tape. He's revisiting
old franchises like "The Matrix" and "Bill and Ted" while continuing to push forward on more
recent hits — notably, there are currently two "John Wick" sequels in production.
At the same time, he's releasing poetry, showing up in video games,
and spending time with the people closest to him. He said:
"[Work] doesn't slow time down. If anything, it speeds everything up."
Luckily for us, Reeves still has plenty of tape left in his reel.
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