- How can you succeed
when you don't have a lot of natural talent?
How can you get ahead and be a success
when you struggle with things that come naturally
to other people in your field or in your community
or in the areas where you want to succeed in?
We need to look no further than Keanu Reeves, guys.
Look, everybody loves Keanu Reeves. I get it.
But you have to know, I mean, I'm 40 years old,
I grew up on "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure."
Keanu Reeves had, like,
has had three distinct periods in his career.
He had Bill and Ted's point break and speed,
late '80s to early '90s, where he established himself
as kind of like a California surfer dude,
kind of laid back and chill and super cool,
but not especially skilled at emoting,
not especially funny, not especially talented.
He's just handsome, and you know,
fairly decent with stunts and charming in his own way.
But nobody and I mean, nobody, I was there,
nobody called him a great actor.
And then there was just as long as stretch of years
where it was just bomb after bomb after bomb
and laughable performance after laughable performance.
To the extent that when "The Matrix" came out,
no one was excited to see it,
'cause it was a Keanu Reeves movie.
And then it blew us away with its storytelling
and its imagination and its creativity.
But nobody looked at Keanu in that movie
and said, "Wow, what a performance, what a revelation."
And then there's a long stretch after "The Matrix"
where he's still in movies, and they're not very good.
Now I'm not banging on Keanu, quite the opposite.
I love this man.
And I want to tell you why he is such a success
to the point where now he's actually a pretty decent actor.
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So it all goes back to I was talking to Alan C. Wright,
my co-host of "Cinema Therapy,"
and I remember talking to him, this is about a decade ago
'cause he's in the film industry
and he knows people who know people.
And I said to him, and I'm ashamed of this,
but I said, "How is Keanu still getting work?
The guy can't act to save his life."
And I'll never forget what Alan said to me.
He said it's because everybody loves him.
In a industry of prima donnas,
in an industry of rude, entitled actors,
so I thought, "Huh, he works hard, he knows his lines.
He's kind, people like being around him.
He's professional, so he keeps getting cast in movies."
And I thought, "Well, good for him."
And the internet has been catching on
that Keanu Reeves is about the nicest person
in all of Hollywood.
I was reading an Insider article called,
"13 times Keanu Reeves was the greatest person ever."
And I selected 10 that I want to talk about.
But first, I want to address something.
Maybe you feel like you're not the best at something.
You want to succeed, but others possess more natural talent.
It could be public speaking. It could be writing, right?
It could be a host of things, you want to excel,
but you struggle when for other people it comes easily.
The fact is there are a lot of people
who are incredibly talented in Hollywood.
There are people who are far more talented than Keanu Reeves
naturally, who never make it as movie stars.
And there are others who make it as movie stars,
but they're real pains in the neck.
Let's talk for a second about Keanu,
about his growth as an actor,
and how he's got to where he is today.
But let's talk about him as a person,
because even if I haven't always respected him as an actor,
again, he has grown on me and I'll tell you why in a moment,
what a man, what a human being.
So from this article, he was on stage at some event
and a fan shouted to him, "You're breathtaking."
And instead of, "Oh, thank you," he looks at the fan
and he goes, "You're breathtaking."
Goes, "You're all breathtaking."
And he treats people as equals, which a lot of people,
when they get into a place of power or prestige
or accomplishment, others are lesser.
They're meant to worship me, build me up.
But you don't exist for me to just treat you
like anybody else and to put myself on your level.
But Keanu has that quality, that humility.
He was once driving to a film set, and he saw a sign
that says, "You're breathtaking is number two."
And he has them stop the car.
He runs out and he's signing, he autographs the sign
that says "You're breathtaking."
And then he does a personalized message to this fan
who had left the sign, just left the sign for him to see,
didn't even stay to hang around for it.
We've all caught on that Keanu
is incredibly respectful to women.
There's pictures, someone caught the trend
and started throwing it up on Twitter of all these pictures
of Keanu Reeves, where women are, you know,
where he's taking pictures with fans
and he keeps his hands out to the side
to not touch the women.
I don't do that. I just say "Consent to touch?"
You know, first of all,
I will never be as big as Keanu Reeves.
But when I meet people that I say, "Consent to touch?"
and they say "Yes," and I put my arms around them,
but there's something really sweet about the fact
that he doesn't touch them, he gives them that space.
There's a confirmed story of him being on a subway,
just riding the subway, not a personal driver,
not a personal jet, just riding the subway,
like an average Joe, and a woman comes in with a large bag
and he gives his seat up for her.
Now what I love about Keanu,
he's not doing this for publicity.
He's not blowing a trumpet before,
and telling his publicist, getting pictures
or stuff to put online, he just is.
And people, you know, report on it
or see him doing it and say things.
But there are hundreds of stories that we don't know,
'cause it's just Keanu being a decent human being.
An employee at a movie theater, it was a teenager.
Keanu comes in to see a movie.
The employee wanted his autograph, but there was no pen,
there was no paper, there's nothing.
Keanu apologized, and the employee was kind of sad.
And then Keanu came back, like two minutes later.
He'd gone to the concession stand
and he bought an ice cream cone.
And then he signed the receipt for the fan,
he autographed it and gave it to them.
"So, you know, it seemed like you wanted my autograph.
So thank you for supporting my work," type thing.
And then he throws the ice cream in the garbage can
and then walks away.
He just bought the ice cream
so he could have a receipt for the fan. (laughs)
On a flight, on a public flight, not a private jet,
public flight to San Francisco,
Keanu's plane had to be grounded.
And so he organized transportation, like a bus for everybody
to make it to San Francisco.
He organized it, made it happen, and then just hung out.
Didn't get a driver for himself.
You know, didn't say, I mean, a big Hollywood movie star
gets a ride for everybody to San Francisco,
but then takes his own car.
Everyone's going to say, "Wow, what a nice guy.
That's amazing."
But he hops on the bus and he hangs out with everybody
all the way to San Francisco
and he's playing country music on his cell phone.
And he's telling them stories about California's history,
like, what a cool guy.
He donates anonymously to children's hospitals.
He's got a multi-million dollar foundation
for children's cancer and other diseases
that he doesn't broadcast.
Other people have have said, "Hey, he doesn't want anyone
to know this, but this is going on."
And this isn't an example of me
of not letting your left hand know
what your right hand is doing.
This is an example of not doing something for the praise,
not doing something for the publicity,
just because it's right.
He was on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,"
and Colbert asked him,
"What do you think happens after we die?"
And he said, "I know the ones that we love will miss us."
And it's such a unifying instead of debating theology
or debating this dogma versus that dogma,
he spoke to a universal truth that everyone can agree on.
Those who love us are going to miss us.
So yeah, I mean, I'm starting to fall in love
with the guy a little bit, can you blame me?
On the set of his "John Wick" films,
Keanu lobbied for stuntmen.
Their characters were going to be killed off
after a fight scene, but he was so impressed
with their skills that he wanted just to keep them on longer
to give them more work,
because one, it would benefit the film,
but two, he formed a real bond with these stuntmen.
And so Keanu goes to the producers.
He's like, we shouldn't have their characters killed.
It's John Wick. He kills everybody.
But he's like, we shouldn't kill them until the end.
Like, let's keep them alive
so I can fight them throughout the film.
And then on the set of "The Matrix" films famously,
he took major pay cuts so that they could pay the crew
what they were worth and afford better sets
and better visual effects.
And at the end of the first "Matrix" film,
he bought Harley Davidson motorcycles for the stunt crew,
saying, "Without them, we couldn't have made this film.
It wouldn't have been a success."
What a sweetheart, right? What a great guy.
So here's the thing. He's exceptionally kind.
And he works his butt off. I have to give it to him.
I recently rewatched "The Matrix" films.
I've seen the "John Wick" films.
The amount of work Keanu puts into action choreography
to do things in one continuous take
instead of breaking up or bringing in his stuntman
to fill in for him is mindblowing.
It's literally, it's Tom Cruise and Jackie Chan level
mindblowing how much work he puts into these action scenes.
And he's worked really hard to master his craft
to the point where Brian Cox was talking
about how far he's come to the point
that Keanu is now an actor that Brian Cox who's legendary
respects as an actor, as a performer.
And you watch him in "John Wick,"
and he's actually got great comedic timing.
And he's got dramatic moments where he really nails it.
He's no longer the whoa, surfer dude.
He has worked really hard to practice this craft.
And I say this because Keanu doesn't have
natural acting talent.
Watch his early films.
He's charming and he's kind of warm, but he's also aloof
and doesn't nail the big dramatic beats
and doesn't nail the big comedy beats
except for in "Bill and Ted's,"
because he's basically playing,
he plays that character really well.
He's not a naturally gifted actor,
but he works his butt off.
He's kind, he's humble. He's giving, he's prepared.
And apparently by all accounts,
he's a joy to work with and a wonderful person.
You could be a success with natural talent,
but oftentimes those people are miserable and unhappy.
They are small-minded and petty, and they are joyless.
Or you can be like Keanu who I like as an actor,
but I love as a human being.
If you're not naturally gifted at something, be kind,
be humble, be giving, be gracious, share the credit,
show up prepared and work really, really hard at things.
And you'll get ahead when others with even more talent
than you may have naturally, they will fall behind
because their hubris will be their downfall.
Looking at you, Kevin Spacey, hubris, and some other things.
Anyways, I'm Jonathan Decker with Mended Light.
This has been "Therapist Reacts."
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