KEANU REEVES BIOGRAPHY
Keanu Reeves is one of the most extraordinary actors of modern Hollywood. Of course, in the first place, he was remembered by the audience as Neo from the Matrix trilogy. But in his rich filmography there are also many other roles: both in box office and in independent projects. This is an unprincipled lawyer in the mystical thriller Devil’s Advocate, a strange undercover agent in the animated film Clouding, and an intermediary between Paradise and Hell, the lord of darkness, Constantine. You can still list a very long time. At the same time, Keanu is not just a talented actor, but also an amazingly sensitive, vulnerable, caring person and an outstanding personality that deserves special attention.
At the same time, Keanu is not just a talented actor, but also an amazingly sensitive, vulnerable, caring person and an outstanding personality that deserves special attention.
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CHILDHOOD
Keanu Reeves was born in the capital of hot Lebanon, Beirut, in the family of geologist Samuel and dancer Patricia Bond. Keanu owes its spectacular appearance to the Hawaiian and Portuguese (from the side of the father), as well as English and Irish (from the side of the mother) roots. And such an unusual name for the boy came from the Hawaiian language and means “a refreshing breeze over the mountains.”
Father Keanu Reeves was an extraordinary person. He did not have higher education, but what is there, he received a certificate of maturity in prison, where he ended up on charges of trafficking in heroin. Two years after the birth of Keanu, baby Kim appeared in the family, and shortly afterwards, as soon as the boy was 3 years old, Samuel left the family. After that, Keanu with his mother and sister moved first to Sydney, then to New York, where his mother, who by then had been retrained as a costume designer, married Broadway director Paul Aaron (not to be confused with actor Aaron Paul). After that, the family finally settled in Toronto – since then Keanu has always considered Canada to be its hospitable homeland.
Later, Keanu had two more sisters from the marriage of Patricia and rock promoter Robert Miller: Karina Miller (b. 1976) and Emma Rose (b. 1980).
In Toronto, the Reeves family settled in front of a music studio, just at the time that Alice Cooper was recording the Alice Cooper Goes to Hell album. Strange, but the rock star remembered a little boy who enthusiastically listened to his rock motifs. “He liked loud music, but I wonder what his parents thought about, leaving the child in the care of Alice Cooper’s band ?!”, the musician later recalled laughing.
Keanu Reeves studied reluctantly at school. Items were given to the future actor with difficulty. This is because in childhood the boy suffered from dyslexia, that is, a violation of the perception of oral and written information. Because of this, Keanu found it difficult to read, write and, accordingly, learn. Due to the ridicule of classmates and the contemptuous attitude of teachers, he quickly became self-contained and unsure of himself, but, having matured, was able to cope with his complexes.
Despite dyslexia, Keanu Reeves has been playing chess at a decent level since childhood. He even challenged adult players, charging an opponent with a dollar for each game.
For five years, Reeves replaced four high schools, including the acting school, from which the young man was expelled. After that, he already nibbled granite science at a Catholic boys’ school. Leaving her too, Keanu began playing hockey and enrolled in a public free school. The teammates even nicknamed the “wall” – Keanu was a first-class goalkeeper and confidently felt on the ice. But the future actor dropped out of this school, without receiving a certificate of maturity.
After that, he moved away from his parents, settled in the basement of his girlfriend Pam’s house and began to earn money in three places at once: he sharpened skates at a local hockey court, cut bushes in parks and cooked spaghetti in an Italian restaurant.
FIRST ROLES
Keanu Reeves played his first role at the age of 15, taking part in the play “Boy Wolf” of the local theater Leah Posluns Theater.
In 1983, Keanu Reeves first appeared on television, starring in an ad for Coca-Cola, as well as in an episode of the typical youth series “Hangin ‘In.” His first role in the feature film was in 1986 – the young actor played the role of the hockey goalkeeper in Peter Markle’s tape “Young Blood”. After the release of the tape, Keanu Reeves received a green card and moved to Los Angeles. Former stepfather Paul Aaron helped Kean settle into the city and found a young talent as a personal agent. He considered the name of the ward too exotic, so in the first films Keanu Reeves was listed under the pseudonyms Norman Reeves, C. S. Reeves and even Chuck Speed.
Good feedback from critics was received by the work of Keanu in the teenage drama “On the River Bank”, which premiered in the same 1986. The guy played schoolboy Matt, who is torn by a dilemma: to tell the authorities about the murder of his classmate by his friend, or to keep the crime a secret in the name of friendship. By the way, Keanu subsequently met with Dennis Hopper , who participated in the filming , on the set of Speed.
In the same 1986, Reeves was offered to play Private Chris in Oliver Stone’s Platoon about the Vietnam War. However, Keanu – a convinced pacifist, refused the role, and as a result, the main role went to Charlie Sheen .
In the early 90s, the name of the young Keanu Reeves was no longer an empty phrase in the world of cinema. So, he managed to demonstrate his charm in the costume melodrama “Dangerous Liaisons” with Glen Close , Michelle Pfeiffer and John Malkovich , as well as in the youth comedy “The Incredible Adventures of Bill and Ted”, playing along with Alex Winter.
In 1991, the action movie “On the crest of a wave” was released, for the sake of which the actor tried himself in surfing and unexpectedly seriously became interested in this sport. In the same year, the premiere of the independent film by Gus Van Sent “My Personal Idaho”, where Keanu reincarnated as a rebel Scott, from a protest engaged in street prostitution.
A great success for Reeves was also shooting in the thriller Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula” (1992). The young actor played Jonathan Harker, who was captured by an insidious vampire ( Gary Oldman ), in love with his bride ( Winona Ryder ). In 1993, he appeared before the audience in the image of one of the reincarnations of Buddha in the film of the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci “Little Buddha”.
“MATRIX”. NEW MILESTONE IN POPULARITY
But Keanu Reeves became a real cult actor after the premiere in 1999 of the first part of the Matrix cyberpunk trilogy from directors Wachowski . Its hero, a hacker named Thomas Anderson, nicknamed Neo, discovers that everything surrounding reality is nothing more than a fiction created by machines to subdue a person after the triumph of artificial intelligence. Freed from the captivity of illusions, Neo became one of the leading figures in the struggle of mankind for the return of freedom.
Smart and dynamic “The Matrix”, full of subtle references to world cinema masterpieces, philosophical treatises and even “Alice in Wonderland”, coupled with the Bible, has become a cult film of the outgoing XX century, almost marking a new era. Based on the trilogy, they wrote books, created computer games, and even painted anime. It’s funny that Keanu Reeves himself for a long time, even after the release of The Matrix, basically had no computer. But he personally took part in the work on costumes and special effects.
The following parts of The Matrix were released in 2003 (with a half-year break). For his work, Keanu Reeves received a total of more than $ 30 million, and he divided 80% of this amount between the 114th people working on the film.
SUBSEQUENT ROLES
After the success of The Matrix, Keanu Reeves starred, according to critics, in a series of unsuccessful works. “Gift”, “Hardball”, “Sweet November”, “Bad habit”, “Ellie Parker”, “Love by the rules and without” – the films are by no means bad, but they awaited roles of a different level from the cult actor.
And they waited: in 2005, viewers saw Keanu Reeves in a new role – the cold-blooded ironic exorcist Konstantin, forced to patrol the border between heaven and hell in anticipation of imminent death. After “Constantine: Lord of Darkness”, Keanu was again talked about as an iconic figure in Hollywood. At this time, the actor had his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2006, Keanu Reeves appeared in Richard Linklater’s extraordinary project – a hand-drawn film based on Philip Dick’s book “Clouding.” Together with the heroes of Robert Downey Jr. , Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, he was involved in the story of the near future, when the world was flooded with a mysterious drug that completely destroys the brain and body of a person. Keanu played a major role, trying on the image of a drug-dependent agent from the drug department.
The audience was also reminded of the melodrama “House by the Lake” released in the same year. The film touched the hearts of millions – it was not just a love story; elements of fiction and even mysticism intervened in it.
In 2013, Keanu himself took the director’s chair, presenting the action movie “Tai Chi Master” to the audience. The directorial debut of Keanu Reeves was greeted positively, despite the punchiness of a similar genre of films.
In parallel with this, Keanu Reeves starred in the fantasy action movie “47 Ronin.” Keanu was the only American actor to be selected for the main role – the remaining characters were given to the popular Japanese, but little-known actors outside the country. The dynamic and atmospheric film received many warm reviews, as well as the next, very different, action with Reeves, “John Wick.”
In 2016, Keanu Reeves appeared in the psychological horror Neon Demon, playing a suspicious hotel manager who accused the heroine El Fanning of damage to the hotel room from a cougar that appeared from nowhere in it
He also played a major role in the drama Just the Truth, turning into a lawyer who is trying to prove the innocence of a young man accused of killing his father for money. Unfortunately, both critics and viewers dubbed the film “boring tyagomotinoy”, adding another project to the number of unsuccessful recent films Keanu Reeves.
In the same year, the actor voiced the kitten, which in the story turned out to be his namesake. The comedy tape was also called “Keanu”.
In 2016, the release of the horror melodrama “Bad Part” was announced, where Keanu Reeves met with Jason Momoa . The plot of the picture tells about a post-apocalyptic society and, in particular, about the community of cannibals. One of the main characters (cannibal, of course) falls in love with his food.
In 2017, he simultaneously worked on several projects – this is a fantastic thriller “Reproduction”, where the actor will play a new “version” of Victor Frankenstein, the melodrama “Destination: Wedding”, where Reeves will again “play love” with Winona Ryder, and the crime thriller “ Siberia ”, the shooting of which was partially held in St. Petersburg. In Russia, “Siberia” came out under the name “Professional” and did not live up to the expectations of Russian viewers because of the abundance of stereotypes: there were Russian mafia, and vodka, and ladies of easy virtue, in short, the entire standard “cranberry” set.
JOHN WICK
If earlier the name Keanu Reeves was associated with Neo from The Matrix, in 2014 it grew together with the image of the “polite hired lone killer” John Wick from the eponymous thriller.
The creator of the film, Chad Stahelsky, has already worked with Reeves on the set of The Matrix – he was a stunt star. Screenwriter Derek Colstad, while working on the plot, starred Paul Newman in the prime of his career in the 60s. Of course, there could be no question of this candidacy – at that time the actor had not been alive for several years.
At that time, Keanu was on the verge of the 50th anniversary, but again showed brilliant professionalism. As in The Matrix, he performed all the tricks in John Wick himself, although 15 years have passed since Neo and his kung fu. Preparing for the role of Wick, Reeves spent 4 months practicing judo and jujitsu. “It’s not just about physical stamina. It has the strength of spirit. This is a man of a completely different worldview, ”said the director.
In 2007, the actor was caught in the company of actress Holly Meyers-Shyer, replaced by Parker Posey, then Trinney Woodall – all the women belonged to the world of cinema, but did not reach great heights in this area.
In the summer of 2013, the media vigorously discussed the affair of Keanu Reeves and Anna Skidanova, a Russian actress. However, the girl herself talked about how they met during a party on a yacht and, unbeknownst to themselves, got into a conversation, having spent several hours behind the conversation, and emphasized that the relationship between them was extremely friendly.
n 2019, Keanu made an exception to the rule and came out with a new lady of the heart. She turned out to be 46-year-old artist Alexandra Grant. The woman does not look like Hollywood beauties, but judging by the photo, they are happy. There was no official confirmation of their relationship, but giving comments on personal life was, in principle, not in Reeves’ habits.
As for everyday life, Keanu Reeves is a very humble person. Having millions of dollars in the account, he continues to ride on public transport, where gallantly gives way to the ladies.
KEANU REEVES NOW
In the future, not only the fourth part of John Wick is waiting for us, but also – quite unexpectedly – the third part of The Adventures of Bill and Ted. The action takes place many years after the second part. Bill and Ted are no longer young, but still haven’t written the song, which, as people from the future claimed, will forever change humanity for the better.
Keanu will also appear in the comedy by Zach Halifianakis “Between Two Ferns” (a full-length version of his famous show in which he takes humorous interviews with famous people)
The big event was the appearance of Keanu Reeves at the gaming conference E3-2019, during which it became known that Keanu would appear in the computer game Cyberpunk 77. He played Johnny Silverhand, a character with a mechanical arm.
During the conference, someone from the audience interrupted Keanu’s speech, shouting: “You are amazing!” To which the actor replied: “No, you are amazing!”, Than earned another portion of folk love (and created another meme).